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CS269: HW/SW Engineering of Embedded Systems, Winter02
The Rest Is History
8086
29,000 trans
1978
286
120,000 trans
1982
386
275,000 trans
1985
486
1,180,000 trans
1989
Pentium
3,100,000 trans
1993
Pentium II
7,500,000 trans
1997
Pentium III
24,000,000 trans
1999
Pentium IV
42,000,000 trans
2000
And the rest is history.

Year after year, the transistor count on an integrated circuit, well, the transistor count of Intel microprocessor products anyway, followed remarkably close to the Moore’s Curve.  And I am sure, not the least due to the fact that he is the chairman and CEO of Intel, afterall.

The Moore’s Law, of course, is not a true law in the sense of laws of physics or other laws of science.  It is just a self-fullfilling prophecy.  It is the highest form of technology prediction, where every researcher, every engineer believes that if he or she solve their portion, everything around will magically be solved by others and the whole thing will work together at the end.