Over 50 years of innovation — from a calculator chip with 2,300 transistors to processors packing billions. Follow the journey.
The world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor. 2,300 transistors running at 740 kHz. Designed for a Japanese calculator, it launched an industry.
The brain behind the Altair 8800 — the first commercially successful personal computer kit. It ran at 2 MHz and became the foundation for CP/M operating system.
The chip that started the x86 architecture — an instruction set that still powers most PCs today. 29,000 transistors at 5–10 MHz.
The first 32-bit x86 processor. With 275,000 transistors, it could address 4 GB of memory and introduced virtual memory support that modern OSes rely on.
First x86 chip with a built-in floating-point unit and on-chip cache. Reached 1.2 million transistors and clock speeds up to 100 MHz.
Superscalar architecture (two pipelines), 3.1 million transistors. The name 'Pentium' was trademarked because you can't trademark a number (586). Defined a generation of PCs.
AMD's first processor to outperform Intel in benchmarks. Hit 1 GHz in 2000, beating Intel in the famous 'GHz race.' Proved AMD was a serious competitor.
First x86 processors with 64-bit support (AMD64/x86-64). Intel eventually adopted AMD's 64-bit extensions — a rare industry move where AMD led the standard.
Intel pivoted from raw clock speed to efficiency with the 'Core' microarchitecture. Dual-core became the norm. The GHz race ended — multi-core was the future.
ARM processors began dominating mobile. Apple's A5 powered the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. The smartphone era proved that efficiency could beat raw power.
AMD's comeback. Zen architecture delivered competitive IPC at lower prices, ending Intel's near-decade of desktop dominance. 8 cores for mainstream consumers.
Apple's first custom Mac silicon based on ARM. Stunning single-thread performance and efficiency on 5nm TSMC process. Proved ARM could rival x86 for desktop/laptop use.
Intel adopted hybrid architecture with Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores — inspired by ARM's big.LITTLE. A seismic shift in x86 design philosophy.
Three-way competition heats up. AMD refines Zen 5, Intel launches Arrow Lake on a new socket, and Qualcomm brings ARM to Windows laptops with competitive performance.