At the core of every computer is a microprocessor, a device that has been called the greatest invention of the century. The dictionary defines the microprocessor as "a semiconductor central processing unit usually contained on a single integrated...

In 1969, after the integrated circuit had become widely available, a Japanese calculator company, Busicom, approached Robert Noyce 's newly formed Intel Corporation. Busicom wanted Intel to produce a set of 12 interconnected integrated circuits for a...

In the last few decades, microprocessors have gone from being expensive and marginally useful to being the foundation of technological civilization. The importance of computers was highlighted by concerns surrounding the much anticipated "Y2K...

A microprocessor is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). The microprocessor was born by reducing the word size of the CPU from...

REAL DSP core The REAL DSP (reconfigurable embedded DSP architecture low power/low cost) core features a dual Harvard architecture with two 16-bit data-bus pathways to its data-computation unit (DCU). The DCU processes 16-bit instruction-operating codes and contains dual multipliers and two 40-bit...

Microprocessor-based motion controllers, optical printers and computer animation workstations are highly relied upon by today's movie makers. A history of their gradual rise to prominence is given with examples of trend-setting films that established the highest limits of their use such as Star Wars,...

Advanced Micro Devices is taking aim at a new market, chip sets, in hopes of lifting its falling sales.The move has been in the works since October, when AMD AMD bought ATI Technologies. ATI makes graphics chips and chip sets.Chip sets are groups of chips...

Via Technologies Inc., the often-overlooked third player in the microprocessor arena, said Friday that Hewlett-Packard Co. has decided to use its low-cost, low-power chips in new energy-efficient business PCs in the booming China market.HP's decision to use Via processors in a new Compaq desktop computer...