Monday, 21 Jul, 2008 Technology

World's most famous chip maker, Intel, celebrates its 40th birthday. Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce were the two physicists that set up the company back in 1968. The term Intel derives from "Integrated Electronics".

"When we introduced the microprocessor no one could have predicted that the market for PCs would be greater than 350 million units a year. Over the next 40 years Intel technology will be at the heart of breakthroughs that solve the big problems of health and environment. For Intel this is just the beginning of its journey," stated Paul Otellini, the company's president and CEO.

Intel looks forward to mark its anniversary with a huge online mural project pleading for art and writing contributions from kids in over 70 of the company's clubhouse centers worldwide. More than 500 submissions express the thoughts on what children expect from computers in the next four decades.

Intel's representatives hope that the project will sketch out the company's altruistic efforts and outline its impact on the computer industry.

"As an industry, we have a responsibility to fulfill these expectations. By providing opportunities for young people in underserved communities to learn technology literacy and problem-solving skills, we hope to secure the next generation of innovators, thought leaders and role models," stated the company's senior vice president for corporate social responsibility, Bruce Sewell.

In the meantime, Dr. Pat Gelsinger, the senior vice president and co-general manager of Digital Enterprise Group (the company's biggest business group), in a post on his blog , wrote about the biggest achievements of Intel over the last four decades.

Some of the most impressive moments for Gelsinger include the launch of the 32-bit processor, the support of the CISC platform, as well as the attempts to keep software compatibility with each new generation chip. He also mentioned about the company's multi-core processors, saying that Intel had to scramble after initially beating around the bush with its bets regarding the achievement of higher clock speeds.

"In an ISSCC paper in 2001 we predicted a power wall with a famous picture of die thermal densities equal to that of a nuclear reactor or the surface of the sun – clearly we needed to change and our answer was the "Right Hand Turn. While we saw this fundamental shift, we were one generation too late and attempted to extend the Pentium IV but luckily, we recovered quickly with our focus on energy efficient performance with Centrino and our great Tick-Tock execution" said Mr. Gelsinger.

Source: PCauthority

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