Talk:Transistor count

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

adding gpu class example ?

I would like to suggest adding GPU chip into example table, because for example G80 from Nvidia counts 681 M transistors, signaling that GPU are not behind general class CPUs. --Quentar 12:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Pentium 4 / Itanium problem?

Hello. Can someone please explain why the Itanium is listed here although he has only 25 000 000 transistors in 2001 and the Pentium4 before him has yet 42 000 000 transistors in 2000 ? ohe of these processors must be terminated from the list, or am i wrong? sry for my english, i'm german. 134.130.78.41 16:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're free to be WP:BOLD! I think the main problem here is we need a graphic rather than a data table. Also to plot transistors per dollar or per square millimeter rather than per chip, since the size and cost of the chips in this table varies greatly. Potatoswatter 18:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Microprocessor chronology

The Microprocessor chronology article is quite similar to this. Merge? Collaborate? -- Henriok (talk) 17:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Should Table be Sorted by Year or Transistor Count?

The table is not in any order now. I started to re-organize it by Year Released, but perhaps it should be by Transistor Count? Organizing by Year of Release makes it easier to follow Moore's Law. Thoughts? It certainly needs to be re-ordered to follow some logic, as right now, it follows none that I can seeDeproduction (talk) 18:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Make both columns sortable and the reader can amuse himself looking at it either way. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
It's too bad the sort is a string sort and not a numerical sort; kind of useless. This is the second time this week I've been disappointed at the way sorted columns work. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I changed those columns to use a numeric sort, rather than the default string sort (which I agree was useless). See Help:Sorting#Numerical sorting problems for details. The fix I used seems to be working in the "Microprocessors" and "GPUs" tables. Alas, I can't seem to get the "transistor count" column of the "FPGA" table to sort right -- how can we fix that? --DavidCary (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Updated Image

I've made a new version of the transistor count image used in this article. Please visit my talk page to make any suggestions before it is added to Moore's law and Transistor count. -- Wgsimon (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

1802 available

the main page says 1976 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.193.24.148 (talk) 15:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Transistor count for Mux 4 input is 24?


Hello, I see that the Transistor count for Mux 4 input is 24. I guess we are referring to the Mux built using basic Gates (AND / OR Logic). I am not able to figure out the circuit being referred here. The link leads to a circuit which would consume more transistors then 24. Can you please help me to get hold of the circuit for 4 input Mux with the transistor count to be 24?

Thanks, Bukka — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bukka4 (talk • contribs) 10:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that is referring to a mux built from pass transistor logic, such as page 3 of the datasheet for the 74HC153. By my count, each of the two 4:1 muxes on that chip includes 6 inverters and 6 transmission gates, each one built from 2 transistors -- a nFET and a pFET -- so that's where the transistor count of 24 transistors comes from. Perhaps we should include the inverters for the A and B "select" inputs as well (but not the inverters and AND gates associated with G "enable" inputs?), bringing the total to 10 inverters and 6 transmission gates, so a total of 32 transistors. --DavidCary (talk) 04:23, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Transistor count for D-gated latch is 8?

Hello, I am troubled by the same issue. Concerning the transistors count for D-gated latch which consists of 4 NAND gates = 16 transistors. I would agree if the component referred to is simple an SR-latch. Could you please verify this?

Thanks, Tazmed — Preceding unsigned comment added by tazmed (talk • contribs) 10:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.58.173.69 (talk)

Yes, a clocked transparent D latch -- such as the ones in a CD4042 quad clocked D latch or the CD74HC75 transparent latch -- can be built from 8 transistors. One way to do that is the "one of four latches" circuit shown on page 3-112 of the CD4042 datasheet, or in the "latch detail" circuit shown on p. 2 of the CD74HC75 datasheet.
If we neglect the inverters used only to buffer the inputs or outputs, and the 2 inverters per chip used to generate the CL and nCL signals, each latch on those chips is built from 2 inverters and 2 transmission gates, which (in CMOS) are 2 transistors each, so that gives 8 transistors.
Is this way of implementing a transparent D latch something that should be mentioned in the D latch article or the pass transistor logic article or both? --DavidCary (talk) 05:12, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Any reference for the WDC 65C02 transistor count?

785,000 transistors seems a bit much for a 8bit microcontroller, even when fabricated in 2009 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.155.186.23 (talk) 23:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. See reference link. It was indeed ridiculous. Mightyname (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Skylake Count Transistor Count Can't Be Accurate

There's no citation, and none of the usual media outlets like anandtech seem to know either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.244.90 (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Agree, at least when it comes to server parts. There is currently a reference to techpowerup.com database for Xeon Platinum 8180 that claims 8.000 bln transistors. That may seem a plausible number, but the very same number is also displayed there for any other Skylake or Cascade Lake Xeon: all models from 4-core Platinum 8256 and 8-core Bronze 3106 up to 32-core Platinum 9221 claim the same transistor count, which cannot simply be true, as the chips fall into 3 different groups of physical dies. 213.247.195.138 (talk) 13:13, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Source tip

Intel have web page with information on the number of transistors used for their CPUs:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/museum-transistors-to-transformations-brochure.html

PDF

Bytesock (talk) 05:58, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

The numbers don't make sense to the uneducated reader.

The lede of this article says: "As of 2016, the highest transistor count in a commercially available CPU (in one chip) is over 7.2 billion transistors" which gives any reader unfamiliar with modern digital electronics the clear impression that an IC of any type can (currently) hold no more than 7.2 billion transistors.

Three paragraphs later in the article (still technically in the lede) the article says: "Xilinx currently holds the "world-record" for a FPGA containing more than 20 billion transistors."

Finally in the Memory section the article states: "a 16 GB flash drive contains roughly 64 billion transistors." and then in the table below it shows a 128GB DRAM chip having an estimated 137,438,953,472 (~137 billion) transistors.

I believe this article needs to clarify this for the reader, and I also think this article should provide information on the theoretical transistor count limit by each IC technology type. Comments? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 09:27, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

  • Still waiting for a response on my concerns above. This article lede correctly starts with The transistor count is the number of transistors on an integrated circuit (IC). Notice it does not say on a processor chip. Why then does the lede not talk about the largest transistor count IC instead of giving undue weight to the much lower density processor-type chips? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 08:26, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

RDa: If you check out the Xilinx materials (DS890, page 28), then XCVU440 uses a SSI technology and consists of three dies (called SLRs), roughly 12x32 mm each. Stacked side by side onto a silicon interposer, they form the 36x32 mm 3D IC. 212.79.106.138 (talk) 19:49, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Re “numbers not making sense…” I agree (imho). So I made an edit to add a parenthetical comment : “As of 2019, the semiconductor node with the highest transistor density is TSMC's 5 nanometer node, with 171.3 million transistors per square millimeter (note this corresponds to a transistor-transistor spacing of 76.4 nm, far greater than the relative meaningless "5nm") JdelaF (talk) 01:15, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

FPGA - About dates of introduction

We had a long discussion with 213.81.220.134 about this subject but a big part of it is redundant/too long so I decided to remove it. You still can find it as archived here. --Samurai80 (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Wrap up

--Samurai80 (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  1. FPGAs are not consumer products, putting a date of introduction might not be as easy
  2. For consumer products such as CPUs and GPUs, date of introduction = first time a device can be acquired
  3. Therefore for FPGAs too it should be the date of the first shipments, and makers tend to clearly announce those first shipments/sampling so it's more simple
  4. The word "introduction" is ambiguous, as there are often announcements "introducing" new devices but these are not related to the introduction on the market we need here
  5. Especially FPGA makers tend to play on ambiguity and talk a lot about new devices that are not yet available as if they were, and that sometimes are even cancelled
  6. Therefore, future products announced with a not enough concrete date of availability should not have a date of introduction set yet
  7. Also Versal and Agilex are ACAPs, so maybe not exactly an FPGA, but I think this is a bit the same as what Virtex II Pro were to FPGAs at the time (CPU+FPGA), so I would suggest to keep them in this category
  8. No source regarding the actual availability of the SX2800 could be found, but it's on Intel's catalog (+ it's listed on Mouser). So I leave the entry with the date as TBD.
  9. It would be nice to have some more Intel FPGAs in this list , but we need sources with info on availability.

About other chips

Microprocessors - More citations needed

References

Incomprehensible parenthetic

Apple A14 and M1 chip Entries

Keeping the page up-to-date and transistor density – call for action (May 2022)

To future maintainers and contributors: GPU table needs cleanup, transistor density update (June 1 2022)

Sources for Sapphire Rapids transistor count, die area (semi-official)

188.66.34.200 is vandalizing the page

Transistor density of N3 wrong 314,730,000

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI