340 The Future

INTEL'S VIEW OF THE FUTURE

Intel provides the largest fraction of the world's computing power, thanks to the omnipresence of the Intel/Microsoft PC (aka the IBM PC). Because such a leader plays a dominant role in shaping the future, it is important for readers to understand Intel's view of what that future holds.

Intel characterizes the rapid change in computing performance as a function of time, as shown in Table 13-1, which compares microprocessors with larger machines of constant performance. Note that the first 8080 microprocessor, introduced in 1974, was roughly equivalent to the IBM 704 mainframe, introduced twenty years earlier. Over time, the microprocessor rapidly evolved to the point where it was only four years behind the large IBM mainframes. In 1990, the combined 80486/80860 microprocessor is equivalent in power to the largest minicomputer from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Although the microprocessors listed sold for a few hundred dollars at most, the processor portion of all the "mainframes" shown in the table sold for between $100,000 and $2 million.

Figure 13-1, from Intel, shows how the computing power of a single microprocessor has crossed over to exceed the power of DEC's minicomputers in 1988 and is projected to cross over and exceed the power of IBM's mainframes in 1996. Figure 13-2, from the Gartner Group, points out the incredible disparity in the number of instructions that can be processed per second per dollar of hardware versus time for various computer classes, from mainframes to workstations, PCs, and pocket computers. For example, in 1983, a mainframe costing $2 million provided about 4 million instructions per second (i.e., mips), for a cost-effectiveness of 2 instructions per second per dollar. Eight years later, in 1991, a relatively low-cost, $2,000 personal computer delivering 2 mips provides about 1,000 instructions per second per dollar.

Although the evolutionary line of performance shown in Figure 13-1 appears to be continuous, the actual performance of the 80x86 microprocessor series has evolved in discrete steps. Table 13-2 illustrates how the clock frequency doubled over a three-year period, giving a 26 percent per year improvement, for each of the Intel products. The table includes the clock frequency not only at the time each microprocessor was announced but also at the end of the first, second, and third years thereafter, since design and process improvements often allow new versions of a microprocessor to be made available during the next several years after the first model is introduced.

Not only are microprocessors becoming more powerful, but the total number of chips (microprocessors and support chips) required to build a PC is rapidly declining, as shown in Table 13-3.

Although the cost of a particular computer will be substantially reduced by taking it from 170 chips down to 1 chip in less than a decade, greater functionality is also being incorporated into a given PC. Figure 13-3, from Intel, shows the various parts of a system