Transistor count
The transistor count is the number of transistors on an integrated circuit. It typically refers to the number of MOSFETs on an IC chip, as all modern ICs use MOSFETs. It is the most common measure of IC complexity. The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observed that the transistor count doubles approximately every two years.
, the largest transistor count in a commercially available microprocessor is 39.54billion MOSFETs, in AMD's Zen 2 based Epyc Rome, which is a 3D integrated circuit fabricated using TSMC's 7 nm FinFET semiconductor manufacturing process., the highest transistor count in a graphics processing unit is Nvidia's GA100 Ampere with 54billion MOSFETs, manufactured using TSMC's 7 nm process., the highest transistor count in any IC chip is Samsung's 1TB eUFS V-NAND flash memory chip, with 2trillion floating-gate MOSFETs. As of 2019, the highest transistor count in a non-memory chip is a deep learning engine called the Wafer Scale Engine by Cerebras, using a special design to route around any non-functional core on the device; it has 1.2trillion MOSFETs, manufactured using TSMC's 16 nm FinFET process.
In terms of computer systems that consist of numerous integrated circuits, the supercomputer with the highest transistor count as of 2016 is the Chinese-designed Sunway TaihuLight, which has for all CPUs/nodes combined "about 400 trillion transistors in the processing part of the hardware" and "the DRAM includes about 12 quadrillion transistors, and that's about 97 percent of all the transistors." To compare, the smallest computer, as of 2018 dwarfed by a grain of rice, has on the order of 100,000 transistors, and the one, fully programmable, with the fewest transistors ever has 130 transistors or fewer.
In terms of the total number of transistors in existence, it has been estimated that a total of 13sextillion MOSFETs have been manufactured worldwide between 1960 and 2018, accounting for at least 99.9% of all transistors. This makes the MOSFET the most widely manufactured device in history.
Transistor count
Among the earliest products to use transistors were portable transistor radios, introduced in 1954, which typically used 4 to 8 transistors, often advertising the number on the radio's case. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, limiting the transistor counts and restricting their usage to a number of specialised applications.The MOSFET, invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits, enabling Moore's law and very large-scale integration. Atalla first proposed the concept of the MOS integrated circuit chip in 1960, followed by Kahng in 1961, both noting that the MOSFET's ease of fabrication made it useful for integrated circuits. The earliest experimental MOS IC to be demonstrated was a 16-transistor chip built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA Laboratories in 1962. Further large-scale integration was made possible with an improvement in MOSFET semiconductor device fabrication, the CMOS process, developed by Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1963.
Microprocessors
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit. It is a multi-purpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output.The development of MOS integrated circuit technology in the 1960s led to the development of the first microprocessors. The 20-bit MP944, developed by Garrett AiResearch for the U.S. Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter in 1970, is considered by its designer Ray Holt to be the first microprocessor. It was a multi-chip microprocessor, fabricated on six MOS chips. However, it was classified by the Navy until 1998. The 4-bit Intel 4004, released in 1971, was the first single-chip microprocessor. It was made possible with an improvement in MOSFET design, MOS silicon-gate technology, developed in 1968 at Fairchild Semiconductor by Federico Faggin, who went on to use MOS SGT technology to develop the 4004 with Marcian Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima at Intel.
All chips over e.g. a million transistors have much memory, usually cache memories in level 1 and 2 or more levels, accounting for most transistors on microprocessors in modern times, where large caches have become the norm. The level 1 caches of the Pentium Pro die accounted for over 14% of its transistors, while the much larger L2 cache was on a separate die, but on-package, so it's not included in the transistor count. Later chips included more levels, L2 or even L3 on-chip. The last DEC Alpha chip made has 90% of it for cache.
While Intel's i960CA small cache of 1 KB, at about 50,000 transistors, isn't a big part of the chip, it alone would have been very large in early microprocessors. In the ARM 3 chip, with 4 KB, the cache was over 63% of the chip, and in the Intel 80486 its larger cache is only over a third of it because the rest of the chip is more complex. So cache memories are the largest factor, except for in early chips with smaller caches or even earlier chips with no cache at all. Then the inherent complexity, e.g. number of instructions, is the dominant factor, more than e.g. the memory the registers of the chip represent.
Processor | MOS transistor count | Date of introduction | Designer | MOS process | Area |
MP944 | 1970 | Garrett AiResearch | |||
Intel 4004 | 2,250 | 1971 | Intel | 10,000 nm | 12 mm2 |
TMX 1795 | 3,078 | 1971 | Texas Instruments | ? nm | 30 mm2 |
Intel 8008 | 3,500 | 1972 | Intel | 10,000 nm | 14 mm2 |
NEC μCOM-4 | 2,500 | 1973 | NEC | 7,500 nm | |
Toshiba TLCS-12 | 11,000+ | 1973 | Toshiba | 6,000 nm | 32 mm2 |
Intel 4040 | 3,000 | 1974 | Intel | 10,000 nm | 12 mm2 |
Motorola 6800 | 4,100 | 1974 | Motorola | 6,000 nm | 16 mm2 |
Intel 8080 | 6,000 | 1974 | Intel | 6,000 nm | 20 mm2 |
TMS 1000 | 8,000 | 1974 | Texas Instruments | 8,000 nm | 11 mm2 |
MOS Technology 6502 | 4,528 | 1975 | MOS Technology | 8,000 nm | 21 mm2 |
Intersil IM6100 | 4,000 | 1975 | Intersil | ||
CDP 1801 | 5,000 | 1975 | RCA | ||
RCA 1802 | 5,000 | 1976 | RCA | 5,000 nm | 27 mm2 |
Zilog Z80 | 8,500 | 1976 | Zilog | 4,000 nm | 18 mm2 |
Intel 8085 | 6,500 | 1976 | Intel | 3,000 nm | 20 mm2 |
TMS9900 | 8,000 | 1976 | Texas Instruments | ||
Motorola MC14500B | 1977 | Motorola | |||
Bellmac-8 | 7,000 | 1977 | Bell Labs | 5,000 nm | |
Motorola 6809 | 9,000 | 1978 | Motorola | 5,000 nm | 21 mm2 |
Intel 8086 | 29,000 | 1978 | Intel | 3,000 nm | 33 mm2 |
Zilog Z8000 | 17,500 | 1979 | Zilog | ||
Intel 8088 | 29,000 | 1979 | Intel | 3,000 nm | 33 mm2 |
Motorola 68000 | 68,000 | 1979 | Motorola | 3,500 nm | 44 mm2 |
Intel 8051 | 50,000 | 1980 | Intel | ||
WDC 65C02 | 11,500 | 1981 | WDC | 3,000 nm | 6 mm2 |
ROMP | 45,000 | 1981 | IBM | 2,000 nm | |
Intel 80186 | 55,000 | 1982 | Intel | 3,000 nm | 60 mm2 |
Intel 80286 | 134,000 | 1982 | Intel | 1,500 nm | 49 mm2 |
WDC 65C816 | 22,000 | 1983 | WDC | 3,000 nm | 9 mm2 |
NEC V20 | 63,000 | 1984 | NEC | ||
Motorola 68020 | 190,000 | 1984 | Motorola | 2,000 nm | 85 mm2 |
Intel 80386 | 275,000 | 1985 | Intel | 1,500 nm | 104 mm2 |
ARM 1 | 25,000 | 1985 | Acorn | 3,000 nm | 50 mm2 |
Novix NC4016 | 16,000 | 1985 | Harris Corporation | 3,000 nm | |
SPARC MB86900 | 110,000 | 1986 | Fujitsu | 1,200 nm | |
NEC V60 | 375,000 | 1986 | NEC | 1,500 nm | |
ARM 2 | 27,000 | 1986 | Acorn | 2,000 nm | 30.25 mm2 |
Z80000 | 91,000 | 1986 | Zilog | ||
NEC V70 | 385,000 | 1987 | NEC | 1,500 nm | |
Hitachi Gmicro/200 | 730,000 | 1987 | Hitachi | 1,000 nm | |
Motorola 68030 | 273,000 | 1987 | Motorola | 800 nm | 102 mm2 |
TI Explorer's 32-bit Lisp machine chip | 553,000 | 1987 | Texas Instruments | 2,000 nm | |
DEC WRL MultiTitan | 180,000 | 1988 | DEC WRL | 1,500 nm | 61 mm2 |
Intel i960 | 250,000 | 1988 | Intel | 1,500 nm | |
Intel i960CA | 600,000 | 1989 | Intel | 800 nm | 143 mm2 |
Intel i860 | 1,000,000 | 1989 | Intel | ||
Intel 80486 | 1,180,235 | 1989 | Intel | 1000 nm | 173 mm2 |
ARM 3 | 310,000 | 1989 | Acorn | 1,500 nm | 87 mm2 |
Motorola 68040 | 1,200,000 | 1990 | Motorola | 650 nm | 152 mm2 |
R4000 | 1,350,000 | 1991 | MIPS | 1,000 nm | 213 mm2 |
ARM 6 | 35,000 | 1991 | ARM | 800 nm | |
Hitachi SH-1 | 600,000 | 1992 | Hitachi | 800 nm | 10 mm2 |
Intel i960CF | 900,000 | 1992 | Intel | 125 mm2 | |
DEC Alpha 21064 | 1,680,000 | 1992 | DEC | 750 nm | 233.52 mm2 |
Hitachi HARP-1 | 2,800,000 | 1993 | Hitachi | 500 nm | 267 mm2 |
Pentium | 3,100,000 | 1993 | Intel | 800 nm | 294 mm2 |
ARM700 | 578,977 | 1994 | ARM | 700 nm | 68.51 mm2 |
MuP21 | 7,000 | 1994 | Offete Enterprises | 1200 nm | |
Motorola 68060 | 2,500,000 | 1994 | Motorola | 600 nm | 218 mm2 |
SA-110 | 2,500,000 | 1995 | Acorn/DEC/Apple | 350 nm | 50 mm2 |
Pentium Pro | 5,500,000 | 1995 | Intel | 500 nm | 307 mm2 |
AMD K5 | 4,300,000 | 1996 | AMD | 500 nm | 251 mm2 |
Hitachi SH-4 | 10,000,000 | 1997 | Hitachi | 200 nm | 42 mm2 |
Pentium II Klamath | 7,500,000 | 1997 | Intel | 350 nm | 195 mm2 |
AMD K6 | 8,800,000 | 1997 | AMD | 350 nm | 162 mm2 |
F21 | 15,000 | 1997 | Offete Enterprises | ||
AVR | 140,000 | 1997 | Nordic VLSI/Atmel | ||
Pentium II Deschutes | 7,500,000 | 1998 | Intel | 250 nm | 113 mm2 |
ARM 9TDMI | 111,000 | 1999 | Acorn | 350 nm | 4.8 mm2 |
Pentium III Katmai | 9,500,000 | 1999 | Intel | 250 nm | 128 mm2 |
Emotion Engine | 13,500,000 | 1999 | Sony/Toshiba | 180 nm | 240 mm2 |
Pentium II Mobile Dixon | 27,400,000 | 1999 | Intel | 180 nm | 180 mm2 |
AMD K6-III | 21,300,000 | 1999 | AMD | 250 nm | 118 mm2 |
AMD K7 | 22,000,000 | 1999 | AMD | 250 nm | 184 mm2 |
Gekko | 21,000,000 | 2000 | IBM/Nintendo | 180 nm | 43 mm2 |
Pentium III Coppermine | 21,000,000 | 2000 | Intel | 180 nm | 80 mm2 |
Pentium 4 Willamette | 42,000,000 | 2000 | Intel | 180 nm | 217 mm2 |
SPARC64 V | 191,000,000 | 2001 | Fujitsu | 130 nm | 290 mm2 |
Pentium III Tualatin | 45,000,000 | 2001 | Intel | 130 nm | 81 mm2 |
Pentium 4 Northwood | 55,000,000 | 2002 | Intel | 130 nm | 145 mm2 |
Itanium 2 McKinley | 220,000,000 | 2002 | Intel | 180 nm | 421 mm2 |
DEC Alpha 21364 | 152,000,000 | 2003 | DEC | 180 nm | 397 mm2 |
Barton | 54,300,000 | 2003 | AMD | 130 nm | 101 mm2 |
AMD K8 | 105,900,000 | 2003 | AMD | 130 nm | 193 mm2 |
Itanium 2 Madison 6M | 410,000,000 | 2003 | Intel | 130 nm | 374 mm2 |
Pentium 4 Prescott | 112,000,000 | 2004 | Intel | 90 nm | 110 mm2 |
SPARC64 V+ | 400,000,000 | 2004 | Fujitsu | 90 nm | 294 mm2 |
Itanium 2 | 592,000,000 | 2004 | Intel | 130 nm | 432 mm2 |
Pentium 4 Prescott-2M | 169,000,000 | 2005 | Intel | 90 nm | 143 mm2 |
Pentium D Smithfield | 228,000,000 | 2005 | Intel | 90 nm | 206 mm2 |
Xenon | 165,000,000 | 2005 | IBM | 90 nm | |
Cell | 250,000,000 | 2005 | Sony/IBM/Toshiba | 90 nm | 221 mm2 |
Pentium 4 Cedar Mill | 184,000,000 | 2006 | Intel | 65 nm | 90 mm2 |
Pentium D Presler | 362,000,000 | 2006 | Intel | 65 nm | 162 mm2 |
Core 2 Duo Conroe | 291,000,000 | 2006 | Intel | 65 nm | 143 mm2 |
Dual-core Itanium 2 | 1,700,000,000 | 2006 | Intel | 90 nm | 596 mm2 |
AMD K10 quad-core 2M L3 | 463,000,000 | 2007 | AMD | 65 nm | 283 mm2 |
ARM Cortex-A9 | 26,000,000 | 2007 | ARM | 45 nm | 31 mm2 |
Core 2 Duo Wolfdale | 411,000,000 | 2007 | Intel | 45 nm | 107 mm2 |
POWER6 | 789,000,000 | 2007 | IBM | 65 nm | 341 mm2 |
Core 2 Duo Allendale | 169,000,000 | 2007 | Intel | 65 nm | 111 mm2 |
Uniphier | 250,000,000 | 2007 | Matsushita | 45 nm | |
SPARC64 VI | 540,000,000 | 2007 | Fujitsu | 90 nm | 421 mm2 |
Core 2 Duo Wolfdale 3M | 230,000,000 | 2008 | Intel | 45 nm | 83 mm2 |
Core i7 | 731,000,000 | 2008 | Intel | 45 nm | 263 mm2 |
AMD K10 quad-core 6M L3 | 758,000,000 | 2008 | AMD | 45 nm | 258 mm2 |
Atom | 47,000,000 | 2008 | Intel | 45 nm | 24 mm2 |
SPARC64 VII | 600,000,000 | 2008 | Fujitsu | 65 nm | 445 mm2 |
Six-core Xeon 7400 | 1,900,000,000 | 2008 | Intel | 45 nm | 503 mm2 |
Six-core Opteron 2400 | 904,000,000 | 2009 | AMD | 45 nm | 346 mm2 |
SPARC64 VIIIfx | 760,000,000 | 2009 | Fujitsu | 45 nm | 513 mm2 |
16-core SPARC T3 | 1,000,000,000 | 2010 | Sun/Oracle | 40 nm | 377 mm2 |
Six-core Core i7 | 1,170,000,000 | 2010 | Intel | 32 nm | 240 mm2 |
8-core POWER7 32M L3 | 1,200,000,000 | 2010 | IBM | 45 nm | 567 mm2 |
Quad-core z196 | 1,400,000,000 | 2010 | IBM | 45 nm | 512 mm2 |
Quad-core Itanium Tukwila | 2,000,000,000 | 2010 | Intel | 65 nm | 699 mm2 |
8-core Xeon Nehalem-EX | 2,300,000,000 | 2010 | Intel | 45 nm | 684 mm2 |
SPARC64 IXfx | 1,870,000,000 | 2011 | Fujitsu | 40 nm | 484 mm2 |
Quad-core + GPU Core i7 | 1,160,000,000 | 2011 | Intel | 32 nm | 216 mm2 |
Six-core Core i7/8-core Xeon E5 | 2,270,000,000 | 2011 | Intel | 32 nm | 434 mm2 |
10-core Xeon Westmere-EX | 2,600,000,000 | 2011 | Intel | 32 nm | 512 mm2 |
Atom "Medfield" | 432,000,000 | 2012 | Intel | 32 nm | 64 mm2 |
SPARC64 X | 2,990,000,000 | 2012 | Fujitsu | 28 nm | 600 mm2 |
8-core AMD Bulldozer | 1,200,000,000 | 2012 | AMD | 32 nm | 315 mm2 |
Quad-core + GPU AMD Trinity | 1,303,000,000 | 2012 | AMD | 32 nm | 246 mm2 |
Quad-core + GPU Core i7 Ivy Bridge | 1,400,000,000 | 2012 | Intel | 22 nm | 160 mm2 |
8-core POWER7+ | 2,100,000,000 | 2012 | IBM | 32 nm | 567 mm2 |
Six-core zEC12 | 2,750,000,000 | 2012 | IBM | 32 nm | 597 mm2 |
8-core Itanium Poulson | 3,100,000,000 | 2012 | Intel | 32 nm | 544 mm2 |
61-core Xeon Phi | 5,000,000,000 | 2012 | Intel | 22 nm | 720 mm2 |
Apple A7 | 1,000,000,000 | 2013 | Apple | 28 nm | 102 mm2 |
Six-core Core i7 Ivy Bridge E | 1,860,000,000 | 2013 | Intel | 22 nm | 256 mm2 |
12-core POWER8 | 4,200,000,000 | 2013 | IBM | 22 nm | 650 mm2 |
Xbox One main SoC | 5,000,000,000 | 2013 | Microsoft/AMD | 28 nm | 363 mm2 |
Quad-core + GPU Core i7 Haswell | 1,400,000,000 | 2014 | Intel | 22 nm | 177 mm2 |
Apple A8 | 2,000,000,000 | 2014 | Apple | 20 nm | 89 mm2 |
8-core Core i7 Haswell-E | 2,600,000,000 | 2014 | Intel | 22 nm | 355 mm2 |
Apple A8X | 3,000,000,000 | 2014 | Apple | 20 nm | 128 mm2 |
15-core Xeon Ivy Bridge-EX | 4,310,000,000 | 2014 | Intel | 22 nm | 541 mm2 |
18-core Xeon Haswell-E5 | 5,560,000,000 | 2014 | Intel | 22 nm | 661 mm2 |
Quad-core + GPU GT2 Core i7 Skylake K | 1,750,000,000 | 2015 | Intel | 14 nm | 122 mm2 |
Dual-core + GPU Iris Core i7 Broadwell-U | 1,900,000,000 | 2015 | Intel | 14 nm | 133 mm2 |
Apple A9 | 2,000,000,000+ | 2015 | Apple | 14 nm | 96 mm2 |
Apple A9 | 2,000,000,000+ | 2015 | Apple | 16 nm | 104.5 mm2 |
Apple A9X | 3,000,000,000+ | 2015 | Apple | 16 nm | 143.9 mm2 |
IBM z13 | 3,990,000,000 | 2015 | IBM | 22 nm | 678 mm2 |
IBM z13 Storage Controller | 7,100,000,000 | 2015 | IBM | 22 nm | 678 mm2 |
32-core SPARC M7 | 10,000,000,000 | 2015 | Oracle | 20 nm | |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 | 3,000,000,000 | 2016 | Qualcomm | 10 nm | 72.3 mm2 |
10-core Core i7 Broadwell-E | 3,200,000,000 | 2016 | Intel | 14 nm | 246 mm2 |
Apple A10 Fusion | 3,300,000,000 | 2016 | Apple | 16 nm | 125 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 960 | 4,000,000,000 | 2016 | Huawei | 16 nm | 110.00 mm2 |
22-core Xeon Broadwell-E5 | 7,200,000,000 | 2016 | Intel | 14 nm | 456 mm2 |
72-core Xeon Phi | 8,000,000,000 | 2016 | Intel | 14 nm | 683 mm2 |
Zip CPU | 1,286 6-LUTs | 2016 | Gisselquist Technology | ||
Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 | 5,300,000,000 | 2017 | Qualcomm | 10 nm | 94 mm2 |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 | 5,300,000,000 | 2017 | Qualcomm | 10 nm | 94 mm2 |
Apple A11 Bionic | 4,300,000,000 | 2017 | Apple | 10 nm | 89.23 mm2 |
Zeppelin SoC Ryzen | 4,800,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | 14 nm | 192 mm2 |
Ryzen 5 1600 Ryzen | 4,800,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | 14 nm | 213 mm2 |
Ryzen 5 1600 X Ryzen | 4,800,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | 14 nm | 213 mm2 |
IBM z14 | 6,100,000,000 | 2017 | IBM | 14 nm | 696 mm2 |
IBM z14 Storage Controller | 9,700,000,000 | 2017 | IBM | 14 nm | 696 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 970 | 5,500,000,000 | 2017 | Huawei | 10 nm | 96.72 mm2 |
Xbox One X main SoC | 7,000,000,000 | 2017 | Microsoft/AMD | 16 nm | 360 mm2 |
28-core Xeon Platinum 8180 | 8,000,000,000 | 2017 | Intel | 14 nm | |
POWER9 | 8,000,000,000 | 2017 | IBM | 14 nm | 695 mm2 |
Freedom U500 Base Platform Chip RISC-V | 250,000,000 | 2017 | SiFive | 28 nm | ~30 mm2 |
SPARC64 XII | 5,450,000,000 | 2017 | Fujitsu | 20 nm | 795 mm2 |
Apple A10X Fusion | 4,300,000,000 | 2017 | Apple | 10 nm | 96.40 mm2 |
Centriq 2400 | 18,000,000,000 | 2017 | Qualcomm | 10 nm | 398 mm2 |
32-core AMD Epyc | 19,200,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | 14 nm | 768 mm2 |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 | 2018 | Qualcomm | 10 nm | ||
Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 | 2018 | Qualcomm | 11 nm | ||
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 | 2018 | Qualcomm | 7 nm | 73.27 mm2 | |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx / SCX8180 | 8,500,000,000 | 2018 | Qualcomm | 7 nm | 112 mm2 |
Apple A12 Bionic | 6,900,000,000 | 2018 | Apple | 7 nm | 83.27 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 980 | 6,900,000,000 | 2018 | Huawei | 7 nm | 74.13 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G | 10,300,000,000 | 2019 | Huawei | 7 nm | 113.31 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G | 8,000,000,000 | 2019 | Huawei | 7 nm | 90.00 mm2 |
HiSilicon Kirin 710 | 5,500,000,000 | 2018 | Huawei | 12 nm | |
Apple A12X Bionic | 10,000,000,000 | 2018 | Apple | 7 nm | 122 mm2 |
Apple A13 | 8,500,000,000 | 2019 | Apple | 7 nm | 98.48 mm2 |
Fujitsu A64FX | 8,786,000,000 | 2018 | Fujitsu | 7 nm | |
Tegra Xavier SoC | 9,000,000,000 | 2018 | Nvidia | 12 nm | 350 mm2 |
Samsung Exynos 9820 | 2019 | Samsung | 8 nm | 127 mm2 | |
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X | 5,990,000,000 | 2019 | AMD | 7&12 nm | 199 mm2 |
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X | 9,890,000,000 | 2019 | AMD | 7 & 12 nm | 273 mm2 |
AMD Epyc Rome | 39,540,000,000 | 2019 | AMD | 7 & 12 nm | 1088 mm2 |
AWS Graviton2 | 30,000,000,000 | 2019 | Amazon | 7 nm |
GPUs
A graphics processing unit is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display.The designer refers to the technology company that designs the logic of the integrated circuit chip. The manufacturer refers to the semiconductor company that fabricates the chip using its semiconductor manufacturing process at a foundry. The transistor count in a chip is dependent on a manufacturer's fabrication process, with smaller semiconductor nodes typically enabling higher transistor density and thus higher transistor counts.
The random-access memory that comes with GPUs greatly increase the total transistor count, with the memory typically accounting for the majority of transistors in a graphics card. For example, Nvidia's Tesla P100 has 15billion FinFETs in the GPU in addition to 16GB of HBM2 memory, totaling about 150billion MOSFETs on the graphics card. The following table does not include the memory. For memory transistor counts, see the [|Memory] section below.
Processor | MOS transistor count | Date of introduction | Designer | Manufacturer | MOS process | Area | |
µPD7220 GDC | 40,000 | 1982 | NEC | NEC | 5,000 nm | ||
ARTC HD63484 | 60,000 | 1984 | Hitachi | Hitachi | |||
YM7101 VDP | 100,000 | 1988 | Sega | Yamaha | |||
Tom & Jerry | 750,000 | 1993 | Flare | IBM | |||
VDP1 | 1,000,000 | 1994 | Sega | Hitachi | 500 nm | ||
Sony GPU | 1,000,000 | 1994 | Toshiba | LSI | 500 nm | ||
NV1 | 1,000,000 | 1995 | Nvidia, Sega | SGS | 500 nm | 90 mm2 | |
Reality Coprocessor | 2,600,000 | 1996 | SGI | NEC | 350 nm | 81 mm2 | |
PowerVR | 1,200,000 | 1996 | VideoLogic | NEC | 350 nm | ||
Voodoo Graphics | 1,000,000 | 1996 | 3dfx | TSMC | 500 nm | ||
Voodoo Rush | 1,000,000 | 1997 | 3dfx | TSMC | 500 nm | ||
NV3 | 3,500,000 | 1997 | Nvidia | SGS, TSMC | 350 nm | 90 mm2 | |
PowerVR2 CLX2 | 10,000,000 | 1998 | VideoLogic | NEC | 250 nm | 116 mm2 | |
i740 | 3,500,000 | 1998 | Intel, Real3D | Real3D | 350 nm | ||
Voodoo 2 | 4,000,000 | 1998 | 3dfx | TSMC | 350 nm | ||
Voodoo Rush | 4,000,000 | 1998 | 3dfx | TSMC | 350 nm | ||
Riva TNT | 7,000,000 | 1998 | Nvidia | TSMC | 350 nm | ||
PowerVR2 PMX1 | 6,000,000 | 1999 | VideoLogic | NEC | 250 nm | ||
Rage 128 | 8,000,000 | 1999 | ATI | TSMC, UMC | 250 nm | 70 mm2 | |
Voodoo 3 | 8,100,000 | 1999 | 3dfx | TSMC | 250 nm | ||
Graphics Synthesizer | 43,000,000 | 1999 | Sony, Toshiba | Sony, Toshiba | 180 nm | 279 mm2 | |
NV5 | 15,000,000 | 1999 | Nvidia | TSMC | 250 nm | ||
NV10 | 17,000,000 | 1999 | Nvidia | TSMC | 220 nm | 111 mm2 | |
Voodoo 4 | 14,000,000 | 2000 | 3dfx | TSMC | 220 nm | ||
NV11 | 20,000,000 | 2000 | Nvidia | TSMC | 180 nm | 65 mm2 | |
NV15 | 25,000,000 | 2000 | Nvidia | TSMC | 180 nm | 81 mm2 | |
Voodoo 5 | 28,000,000 | 2000 | 3dfx | TSMC | 220 nm | ||
R100 | 30,000,000 | 2000 | ATI | TSMC | 180 nm | 97 mm2 | |
Flipper | 51,000,000 | 2000 | ArtX | NEC | 180 nm | 106 mm2 | |
PowerVR3 KYRO | 14,000,000 | 2001 | Imagination | ST | 250 nm | ||
PowerVR3 KYRO II | 15,000,000 | 2001 | Imagination | ST | 180 nm | ||
NV2A | 60,000,000 | 2001 | Nvidia | TSMC | 150 nm | ||
NV20 | 57,000,000 | 2001 | Nvidia | TSMC | 150 nm | 128 mm2 | |
R200 | 60,000,000 | 2001 | ATI | TSMC | 150 nm | 68 mm2 | |
NV25 | 63,000,000 | 2002 | Nvidia | TSMC | 150 nm | 142 mm2 | |
R300 | 107,000,000 | 2002 | ATI | TSMC | 150 nm | 218 mm2 | |
R360 | 117,000,000 | 2003 | ATI | TSMC | 150 nm | 218 mm2 | |
NV38 | 135,000,000 | 2003 | Nvidia | TSMC | 130 nm | 207 mm2 | |
R480 | 160,000,000 | 2004 | ATI | TSMC | 130 nm | 297 mm2 | |
NV40 | 222,000,000 | 2004 | Nvidia | IBM | 130 nm | 305 mm2 | |
Xenos | 232,000,000 | 2005 | ATI | TSMC | 90 nm | 182 mm2 | |
RSX Reality Synthesizer | 300,000,000 | 2005 | Nvidia, Sony | Sony | 90 nm | 186 mm2 | |
G70 | 303,000,000 | 2005 | Nvidia | TSMC, Chartered | 110 nm | 333 mm2 | |
R520 | 321,000,000 | 2005 | ATI | TSMC | 90 nm | 288 mm2 | |
R580 | 384,000,000 | 2006 | ATI | TSMC | 90 nm | 352 mm2 | |
G80 | 681,000,000 | 2006 | Nvidia | TSMC | 90 nm | 480 mm2 | |
G86 Tesla | 210,000,000 | 2007 | Nvidia | TSMC | 80 nm | 127 mm2 | |
G84 Tesla | 289,000,000 | 2007 | Nvidia | TSMC | 80 nm | 169 mm2 | |
R600 | 700,000,000 | 2007 | ATI | TSMC | 80 nm | 420 mm2 | |
G92 | 754,000,000 | 2007 | Nvidia | TSMC, UMC | 65 nm | 324 mm2 | |
G98 Tesla | 210,000,000 | 2008 | Nvidia | TSMC | 65 nm | 86 mm2 | |
RV710 | 242,000,000 | 2008 | ATI | TSMC | 55 nm | 73 mm2 | |
G96 Tesla | 314,000,000 | 2008 | Nvidia | TSMC | 55 nm | 121 mm2 | |
G94 Tesla | 505,000,000 | 2008 | Nvidia | TSMC | 65 nm | 240 mm2 | |
RV730 | 514,000,000 | 2008 | ATI | TSMC | 55 nm | 146 mm2 | |
RV670 | 666,000,000 | 2008 | ATI | TSMC | 55 nm | 192 mm2 | |
RV770 | 956,000,000 | 2008 | ATI | TSMC | 55 nm | 256 mm2 | |
RV790 | 959,000,000 | 2008 | ATI | TSMC | 55 nm | 282 mm2 | |
GT200b Tesla | 1,400,000,000 | 2008 | Nvidia | TSMC, UMC | 55 nm | 470 mm2 | |
GT200 Tesla | 1,400,000,000 | 2008 | Nvidia | TSMC | 65 nm | 576 mm2 | |
GT218 Tesla | 260,000,000 | 2009 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 57 mm2 | |
GT216 Tesla | 486,000,000 | 2009 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 100 mm2 | |
GT215 Tesla | 727,000,000 | 2009 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 144 mm2 | |
RV740 | 826,000,000 | 2009 | ATI | TSMC | 40 nm | 137 mm2 | |
Juniper RV840 | 1,040,000,000 | 2009 | ATI | TSMC | 40 nm | 166 mm2 | |
Cypress RV870 | 2,154,000,000 | 2009 | ATI | TSMC | 40 nm | 334 mm2 | |
Cedar RV810 | 292,000,000 | 2010 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 59 mm2 | |
Redwood RV830 | 627,000,000 | 2010 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 104 mm2 | |
GF106 Fermi | 1,170,000,000 | 2010 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 238 mm2 | |
Barts RV940 | 1,700,000,000 | 2010 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 255 mm2 | |
Cayman RV970 | 2,640,000,000 | 2010 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 389 mm2 | |
GF100 Fermi | 3,200,000,000 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 526 mm2 | ||
GF110 Fermi | 3,000,000,000 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 520 mm2 | ||
GF119 Fermi | 292,000,000 | 2011 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 79 mm2 | |
Caicos RV910 | 370,000,000 | 2011 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 67 mm2 | |
GF108 Fermi | 585,000,000 | 2011 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 116 mm2 | |
Turks RV930 | 716,000,000 | 2011 | AMD | TSMC | 40 nm | 118 mm2 | |
GF104 Fermi | 1,950,000,000 | 2011 | Nvidia | TSMC | 40 nm | 332 mm2 | |
Tahiti | 4,312,711,873 | 2011 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 365 mm2 | |
GK107 Kepler | 1,270,000,000 | 2012 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 118 mm2 | |
Cape Verde | 1,500,000,000 | 2012 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 123 mm2 | |
GK106 Kepler | 2,540,000,000 | 2012 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 221 mm2 | |
Pitcairn | 2,800,000,000 | 2012 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 212 mm2 | |
GK104 Kepler | 3,540,000,000 | 2012 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 294 mm2 | |
GK110 Kepler | 7,080,000,000 | 2012 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 561 mm2 | |
Oland | 1,040,000,000 | 2013 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 90 mm2 | |
Bonaire | 2,080,000,000 | 2013 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 160 mm2 | |
Durango | 5,000,000,000 | 2013 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 363 mm2 | |
Liverpool | Unknown | 2013 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 348 mm2 | |
Hawaii | 6,300,000,000 | 2013 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 438 mm2 | |
GM107 Maxwell | 1,870,000,000 | 2014 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 148 mm2 | |
GM206 Maxwell | 2,940,000,000 | 2014 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 228 mm2 | |
Tonga | 5,000,000,000 | 2014 | AMD | TSMC, GlobalFoundries | 28 nm | 366 mm2 | |
GM204 Maxwell | 5,200,000,000 | 2014 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 398 mm2 | |
GM200 Maxwell | 8,000,000,000 | 2015 | Nvidia | TSMC | 28 nm | 601 mm2 | |
Fiji | 8,900,000,000 | 2015 | AMD | TSMC | 28 nm | 596 mm2 | |
Polaris 11 "Baffin" | 3,000,000,000 | 2016 | AMD | Samsung, GlobalFoundries | 14 nm | 123 mm2 | |
GP108 Pascal | 4,400,000,000 | 2016 | Nvidia | TSMC | 16 nm | 200 mm2 | |
Durango 2 | 5,000,000,000 | 2016 | AMD | TSMC | 16 nm | 240 mm2 | |
Neo | 5,700,000,000 | 2016 | AMD | TSMC | 16 nm | 325 mm2 | |
Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" | 5,700,000,000 | 2016 | AMD | Samsung, GlobalFoundries | 14 nm | 232 mm2 | |
GP104 Pascal | 7,200,000,000 | 2016 | Nvidia | TSMC | 16 nm | 314 mm2 | |
GP100 Pascal | 15,300,000,000 | 2016 | Nvidia | TSMC, Samsung | 16 nm | 610 mm2 | |
GP108 Pascal | 1,850,000,000 | 2017 | Nvidia | Samsung | 14 nm | 74 mm2 | |
Polaris 12 "Lexa" | 2,200,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | Samsung, GlobalFoundries | 14 nm | 101 mm2 | |
GP107 Pascal | 3,300,000,000 | 2017 | Nvidia | Samsung | 14 nm | 132 mm2 | |
Scorpio | 7,000,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | TSMC | 16 nm | 359 mm2 | |
GP102 Pascal | 11,800,000,000 | 2017 | Nvidia | TSMC, Samsung | 16 nm | 471 mm2 | |
Vega 10 | 12,500,000,000 | 2017 | AMD | Samsung, GlobalFoundries | 14 nm | 484 mm2 | |
GV100 Volta | 21,100,000,000 | 2017 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 815 mm2 | |
TU106 Turing | 10,800,000,000 | 2018 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 445 mm2 | |
Vega 20 | 13,230,000,000 | 2018 | AMD | TSMC | 7 nm | 331 mm2 | |
TU104 Turing | 13,600,000,000 | 2018 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 545 mm2 | |
TU102 Turing | 18,600,000,000 | 2018 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 754 mm2 | |
TU117 Turing | 4,700,000,000 | 2019 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 200 mm2 | |
TU116 Turing | 6,600,000,000 | 2019 | Nvidia | TSMC | 12 nm | 284 mm2 | |
Navi 14 | 6,400,000,000 | 2019 | AMD | TSMC | 7 nm | 158 mm2 | |
Navi 10 | 10,300,000,000 | 2019 | AMD | TSMC | 7 nm | 251 mm2 | |
GA100 Ampere | 54,000,000,000 | 2020 | Nvidia | TSMC | 7 nm | 826 mm2 |
FPGA
A field-programmable gate array is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing.FPGA | MOS transistor count | Date of introduction | Designer | Manufacturer | MOS process | Area | |
Virtex | 70,000,000 | 1997 | Xilinx | ||||
Virtex-E | 200,000,000 | 1998 | Xilinx | ||||
Virtex-II | 350,000,000 | 2000 | Xilinx | 130 nm | |||
Virtex-II PRO | 430,000,000 | 2002 | Xilinx | ||||
Virtex-4 | 1,000,000,000 | 2004 | Xilinx | 90 nm | |||
Virtex-5 | 1,100,000,000 | 2006 | Xilinx | TSMC | 65 nm | ||
Stratix IV | 2,500,000,000 | 2008 | Altera | TSMC | 40 nm | ||
Stratix V | 3,800,000,000 | 2011 | Altera | TSMC | 28 nm | ||
Arria 10 | 5,300,000,000 | 2014 | Altera | TSMC | 20 nm | ||
Virtex-7 2000T | 6,800,000,000 | 2011 | Xilinx | TSMC | 28 nm | ||
Stratix 10 SX 2800 | 17,000,000,000 | TBD | Intel | Intel | 14 nm | 560 mm2 | |
Virtex-Ultrascale VU440 | 20,000,000,000 | Q1 2015 | Xilinx | TSMC | 20 nm | ||
Virtex-Ultrascale+ VU19P | 35,000,000,000 | 2020 | Xilinx | TSMC | 16 nm | 900 mm2 | |
Versal VC1902 | 37,000,000,000 | 2H 2019 | Xilinx | TSMC | 7 nm | ||
Stratix 10 GX 10M | 43,300,000,000 | Q4 2019 | Intel | Intel | 14 nm | 1400 mm2 |
Memory
is an electronic data storage device, often used as computer memory, implemented on integrated circuits. Nearly all semiconductor memory since the 1970s have used MOSFETs, replacing earlier bipolar junction transistors. There are two major types of semiconductor memory, random-access memory and non-volatile memory. In turn, there are two major RAM types, dynamic random-access memory and static random-access memory, as well as two major NVM types, flash memory and read-only memory.Typical CMOS SRAM consists of six transistors per cell. For DRAM, 1T1C, which means one transistor and one capacitor structure, is common. Capacitor charged or not is used to store 1 or 0. For flash memory, the data is stored in floating gate, and the resistance of the transistor is sensed to interpret the data stored. Depending on how fine scale the resistance could be separated, one transistor could store up to 3-bits, meaning eight distinctive level of resistance possible per transistor. However, the fine the scale comes with cost of repeatability therefore reliability. Typically, low grade 2-bits MLC flash is used for flash drives, so a 16 GB flash drive contains roughly 64 billion transistors.
For SRAM chips, six-transistor cells was the standard. DRAM chips during the early 1970s had three-transistor cells, before single-transistor cells became standard since the era of 4Kb DRAM in the mid-1970s. In single-level flash memory, each cell contains one floating-gate MOSFET, whereas multi-level flash contains 2, 3 or 4 bits per transistor.
Flash memory chips are commonly stacked up in layers, up to 128-layer in production, and 136-layer managed, and available in end-user devices up to 69-layer from manufacturers.
Chip name | Capacity | RAM type | Transistor count | Date of introduction | Manufacturer | MOS process | Area | |
1-bit | SRAM | 6 | 1963 | Fairchild | ||||
1-bit | DRAM | 1 | 1965 | Toshiba | ||||
8-bit | SRAM | 48 | 1965 | SDS, Signetics | ||||
SP95 | 16-bit | SRAM | 80 | 1965 | IBM | |||
TMC3162 | 16-bit | SRAM | 96 | 1966 | Transitron | |||
SRAM | 1966 | NEC | ||||||
256-bit | DRAM | 256 | 1968 | Fairchild | ||||
64-bit | SRAM | 384 | 1968 | Fairchild | ||||
144-bit | SRAM | 864 | 1968 | NEC | ||||
1101 | 256-bit | SRAM | 1,536 | 1969 | Intel | 12,000 nm | ||
1102 | 1 Kb | DRAM | 3,072 | 1970 | Intel, Honeywell | |||
1103 | 1 Kb | DRAM | 3,072 | 1970 | Intel | 8,000 nm | 10 mm2 | |
μPD403 | 1 Kb | DRAM | 3,072 | 1971 | NEC | |||
2 Kb | DRAM | 6,144 | 1971 | General Instrument | 12.7 mm2 | |||
2102 | 1 Kb | SRAM | 6,144 | 1972 | Intel | |||
8 Kb | DRAM | 8,192 | 1973 | IBM | 18.8 mm2 | |||
5101 | 1 Kb | SRAM | 6,144 | 1974 | Intel | |||
2116 | 16 Kb | DRAM | 16,384 | 1975 | Intel | |||
2114 | 4 Kb | SRAM | 24,576 | 1976 | Intel | |||
4 Kb | SRAM | 24,576 | 1977 | Toshiba | ||||
64 Kb | DRAM | 65,536 | 1977 | NTT | 35.4 mm2 | |||
64 Kb | DRAM | 65,536 | 1979 | Siemens | 25.2 mm2 | |||
16 Kb | SRAM | 98,304 | 1980 | Hitachi, Toshiba | ||||
256 Kb | DRAM | 262,144 | 1980 | NEC | 1,500 nm | 41.6 mm2 | ||
256 Kb | DRAM | 262,144 | 1980 | NTT | 1,000 nm | 34.4 mm2 | ||
64 Kb | SRAM | 393,216 | 1980 | Matsushita | ||||
288 Kb | DRAM | 294,912 | 1981 | IBM | 25 mm2 | |||
64 Kb | SRAM | 393,216 | 1982 | Intel | 1,500 nm | |||
256 Kb | SRAM | 1,572,864 | 1984 | Toshiba | 1,200 nm | |||
8 Mb | DRAM | 8,388,608 | Hitachi | |||||
16 Mb | DRAM | 16,777,216 | 1987 | NTT | 700 nm | 148 mm2 | ||
4 Mb | SRAM | 25,165,824 | 1990 | NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi | ||||
64 Mb | DRAM | 67,108,864 | 1991 | Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Toshiba | 400 nm | |||
KM48SL2000 | 16 Mb | SDRAM | 16,777,216 | 1992 | Samsung | |||
16 Mb | SRAM | 100,663,296 | 1992 | Fujitsu, NEC | 400 nm | |||
256 Mb | DRAM | 268,435,456 | 1993 | Hitachi, NEC | 250 nm | |||
1 Gb | DRAM | 1,073,741,824 | NEC | 250 nm | ||||
1 Gb | DRAM | 1,073,741,824 | Hitachi | 160 nm | ||||
1 Gb | SDRAM | 1,073,741,824 | 1996 | Mitsubishi | 150 nm | |||
1 Gb | SDRAM | 1,073,741,824 | 1997 | Hyundai | ||||
4 Gb | DRAM | 1,073,741,824 | 1997 | NEC | 150 nm | |||
4 Gb | DRAM | 4,294,967,296 | 1998 | Hyundai | ||||
8 Gb | SDRAM | 8,589,934,592 | Samsung | 50 nm | ||||
16 Gb | SDRAM | 17,179,869,184 | 2008 | Samsung | 50 nm | |||
32 Gb | SDRAM | 34,359,738,368 | 2016 | Samsung | 20 nm | |||
64 Gb | SDRAM | 68,719,476,736 | 2017 | Samsung | 20 nm | |||
128 Gb | SDRAM | 137,438,953,472 | 2018 | Samsung | 10 nm | |||
RRAM | 2019 | Skywater | 90 nm |
Chip name | Capacity | Flash type | FGMOS transistor count | Date of introduction | Manufacturer | MOS process | Area | |
256 Kb | NOR | 262,144 | 1985 | Toshiba | 2,000 nm | |||
1 Mb | NOR | 1,048,576 | 1989 | Seeq, Intel | ||||
4 Mb | NAND | 4,194,304 | 1989 | Toshiba | 1,000 nm | |||
16 Mb | NOR | 16,777,216 | 1991 | Mitsubishi | 600 nm | |||
DD28F032SA | 32 Mb | NOR | 33,554,432 | 1993 | Intel | 280 mm2 | ||
64 Mb | NOR | 67,108,864 | 1994 | NEC | 400 nm | |||
64 Mb | NAND | 67,108,864 | 1996 | Hitachi | 400 nm | |||
128 Mb | NAND | 134,217,728 | 1996 | Samsung, Hitachi | ||||
256 Mb | NAND | 268,435,456 | 1999 | Hitachi, Toshiba | 250 nm | |||
512 Mb | NAND | 536,870,912 | 2000 | Toshiba | ||||
1 Gb | 2-bit NAND | 536,870,912 | 2001 | Samsung | ||||
1 Gb | 2-bit NAND | 536,870,912 | 2001 | Toshiba, SanDisk | 160 nm | |||
2 Gb | NAND | 2,147,483,648 | 2002 | Samsung, Toshiba | ||||
8 Gb | NAND | 8,589,934,592 | 2004 | Samsung | 60 nm | |||
16 Gb | NAND | 17,179,869,184 | 2005 | Samsung | 50 nm | |||
32 Gb | NAND | 34,359,738,368 | 2006 | Samsung | 40 nm | |||
THGAM | 128 Gb | Stacked NAND | 128,000,000,000 | Toshiba | 56 nm | 252 mm2 | ||
THGBM | 256 Gb | Stacked NAND | 256,000,000,000 | 2008 | Toshiba | 43 nm | 353 mm2 | |
THGBM2 | 1 Tb | Stacked 4-bit NAND | 256,000,000,000 | 2010 | Toshiba | 32 nm | 374 mm2 | |
KLMCG8GE4A | 512 Gb | Stacked 2-bit NAND | 256,000,000,000 | 2011 | Samsung | 192 mm2 | ||
KLUFG8R1EM | 4 Tb | Stacked 3-bit V-NAND | 1,365,333,333,504 | 2017 | Samsung | 150 mm2 | ||
eUFS | 8 Tb | Stacked 4-bit V-NAND | 2,048,000,000,000 | 2019 | Samsung | 150 mm2 |
Chip name | Capacity | ROM type | Transistor count | Date of introduction | Manufacturer | MOS process | Area | |
PROM | 1956 | Arma | ||||||
1 Kb | ROM | 1,024 | 1965 | General Microelectronics | ||||
3301 | 1 Kb | ROM | 1,024 | 1969 | Intel | |||
1702 | 2 Kb | EPROM | 2,048 | 1971 | Intel | 15 mm2 | ||
4 Kb | ROM | 4,096 | 1974 | AMD, General Instrument | ||||
2708 | 8 Kb | EPROM | 8,192 | 1975 | Intel | |||
2 Kb | EEPROM | 2,048 | 1976 | Toshiba | ||||
µCOM-43 ROM | 16 Kb | PROM | 16,000 | 1977 | NEC | |||
2716 | 16 Kb | EPROM | 16,384 | 1977 | Intel | |||
EA8316F | 16 Kb | ROM | 16,384 | 1978 | Electronic Arrays | 436 mm2 | ||
2732 | 32 Kb | EPROM | 32,768 | 1978 | Intel | |||
2364 | 64 Kb | ROM | 65,536 | 1978 | Intel | |||
2764 | 64 Kb | EPROM | 65,536 | 1981 | Intel | 3,500 nm | ||
27128 | 128 Kb | EPROM | 131,072 | 1982 | Intel | |||
27256 | 256 Kb | EPROM | 262,144 | 1983 | Intel | |||
256 Kb | EPROM | 262,144 | 1983 | Fujitsu | ||||
512 Kb | EPROM | 524,288 | 1984 | AMD | 1,700 nm | |||
27512 | 512 Kb | EPROM | 524,288 | 1984 | Intel | |||
1 Mb | EPROM | 1,048,576 | 1984 | NEC | 1,200 nm | |||
4 Mb | EPROM | 4,194,304 | 1987 | Toshiba | 800 nm | |||
16 Mb | EPROM | 16,777,216 | 1990 | NEC | 600 nm | |||
16 Mb | MROM | 16,777,216 | 1995 | AKM, Hitachi |
Transistor computers
Before transistors were invented, relays were used in early computers. The world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer, the 1941 Z3 22-bit word length computer, had 2,600 relays, and operated at a clock frequency of about 4–5 Hz. The 1940 Complex Number Computer had fewer than 500 relays, but it was not fully programmable.The second generation of computers were transistor computers that featured boards filled with discrete transistors and magnetic memory cores. The experimental 1953 48-bit Transistor Computer, developed at the University of Manchester, is widely believed to be the first transistor computer to come into operation anywhere in the world. A later version the 1955 machine had a total of 250 junction transistors and 1300 point diodes. The Computer also used a small number of tubes in its clock generator, so it was not the first transistorized. The ETL Mark III, developed at the Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1956, may have been the first transistor-based electronic computer using the stored program method. It had about "130 point-contact transistors and about 1,800 germanium diodes were used for logic elements, and these were housed on 300 plug-in packages which could be slipped in and out. The 1958 decimal architecture IBM 7070 was the first transistor computer to be fully programmable. It had about 30,000 alloy-junction germanium transistors and 22,000 germanium diodes, on approximately 14,000 Standard Modular System cards. The 1959 MOBIDIC, short for "MOBIle DIgital Computer", at 12,000 pounds mounted in the trailer of a semi-trailer truck, was a transistorized computer for battlefield data.
The third generation of computers used integrated circuits. The 1962 15-bit Apollo Guidance Computer used "about 4,000 "Type-G" circuits" for about 12,000 transistors plus 32,000 resistors.
The first commercial IC-based computer was the IBM System/360 in 1964. The 1965 12-bit PDP-8 CPU had 1409 transistors and over 10,000 diodes. It was not a microprocessor, as it used discrete transistors on many cards; but later microprocessors, such as the Intersil 6100 reimplemented it, see below.
The next generation of computers were the microcomputers, also known as home computers or personal computers, which used MOS microprocessors, in the 1970s. This list includes early transistorized computers and IC-based computers from the 1950s and 1960s.
Computer | Transistor count | Year | Manufacturer | Notes | |
Transistor Computer | 92 | 1953 | University of Manchester | Point-contact transistors | |
TRADIC | 700 | 1954 | Bell Labs | Point-contact transistors | |
Transistor Computer | 250 | 1955 | University of Manchester | Discrete point-contact transistors | |
ETL Mark III | 130 | 1956 | Electrotechnical Laboratory | Point-contact transistors | |
Metrovick 950 | 200 | 1956 | Metropolitan-Vickers | Discrete junction transistors | |
NEC NEAC-2201 | 600 | 1958 | NEC | Germanium transistors | |
Hitachi MARS-1 | 1,000 | 1958 | Hitachi | ||
IBM 7070 | 30,000 | 1958 | IBM | Alloy-junction germanium transistors | |
Matsushita MADIC-I | 400 | 1959 | Matsushita | Bipolar transistors | |
NEC NEAC-2203 | 2,579 | 1959 | NEC | ||
Toshiba TOSBAC-2100 | 5,000 | 1959 | Toshiba | ||
IBM 7090 | 50,000 | 1959 | IBM | Discrete germanium transistors | |
PDP-1 | 2,700 | 1959 | Digital Equipment Corporation | Discrete transistors | |
Mitsubishi MELCOM 1101 | 3,500 | 1960 | Mitsubishi | Germanium transistors | |
M18 FADAC | 1,600 | 1960 | Autonetics | Discrete transistors | |
D-17B | 1,521 | 1962 | Autonetics | Discrete transistors | |
NEC NEAC-L2 | 16,000 | 1964 | NEC | Ge transistors | |
IBM System/360 | ? | 1964 | IBM | Integrated circuits | |
PDP-8/I | 1409 | 1968 | Digital Equipment Corporation | 74 series TTL circuits | |
Apollo Guidance Computer Block II | 12,300 | 1966 | Raytheon / MIT Instrumentation Laboratory | 4,100 ICs, each containing a 3-transistor, 3-input NOR gate |
Logic functions
Transistor count for generic logic functions is based on static CMOS implementation.Function | Transistor count | Ref |
NOT | 2 | |
Buffer | 4 | |
NAND 2-input | 4 | |
NOR 2-input | 4 | |
AND 2-input | 6 | |
OR 2-input | 6 | |
NAND 3-input | 6 | |
NOR 3-input | 6 | |
XOR 2-input | 6 | |
XNOR 2-input | 8 | |
MUX 2-input with TG | 6 | |
MUX 4-input with TG | 18 | |
NOT MUX 2-input | 8 | |
MUX 4-input | 24 | |
1-bit adder full | 28 | |
1-bit adder–subtractor | 48 | |
AND-OR-INVERT | 6 | |
Latch, D gated | 8 | |
Flip-flop, edge triggered dynamic D with reset | 12 | |
8-bit multiplier | 3,000 | |
16-bit multiplier | 9,000 | |
32-bit multiplier | 21,000 | |
small-scale integration | 2–100 | |
medium-scale integration | 100–500 | |
large-scale integration | 500–20,000 | |
very-large-scale integration | 20,000–1,000,000 | |
ultra-large scale integration | >1,000,000 |
Parallel systems
Historically, each processing element in earlier parallel systems—like all CPUs of that time—was a serial computer built out of multiple chips. As transistor counts per chip increases, each processing element could be built out of fewer chips, and then later each multi-core processor chip could contain more processing elements.Goodyear MPP: 8 pixel processors per chip, 3,000 to 8,000 transistors per chip.
Brunel University Scape : 256 pixel processors per chip, 120,000 to 140,000 transistors per chip.
Cell Broadband Engine: with 9 cores per chip, had 234 million transistors per chip.
Other devices
Transistor density
The transistor density is the number of transistors that are fabricated per unit area, typically measured in terms of the number of transistors per square millimeter. The transistor density usually correlates with the gate length of a semiconductor node, typically measured in nanometers., the semiconductor node with the highest transistor density is TSMC's 5 nanometer node, with 171.3million transistors per square millimeter.MOSFET nodes
Node name | Transistor density | Production year | Process | MOSFET | Manufacturer | |
1960 | 20,000 nm | PMOS | Bell Labs | |||
1960 | 20,000 nm | NMOS | Bell Labs | |||
1963 | CMOS | Fairchild | ||||
1964 | PMOS | General Microelectronics | ||||
1968 | 20,000 nm | CMOS | RCA | |||
1969 | 12,000 nm | PMOS | Intel | |||
1970 | 10,000 nm | CMOS | RCA | |||
1970 | 8,000 nm | PMOS | Intel | |||
1971 | 10,000 nm | PMOS | Intel | |||
1971 | PMOS | General Instrument | ||||
1973 | NMOS | Texas Instruments | ||||
1973 | NMOS | Mostek | ||||
1973 | 7,500 nm | NMOS | NEC | |||
1973 | 6,000 nm | PMOS | Toshiba | |||
1976 | 5,000 nm | NMOS | Hitachi, Intel | |||
1976 | 5,000 nm | CMOS | RCA | |||
1976 | 4,000 nm | NMOS | Zilog | |||
1976 | 3,000 nm | NMOS | Intel | |||
1977 | NMOS | NTT | ||||
1978 | 3,000 nm | CMOS | Hitachi | |||
1978 | 2,500 nm | NMOS | Texas Instruments | |||
1978 | 2,000 nm | NMOS | NEC, NTT | |||
1979 | VMOS | Siemens | ||||
1979 | 1,000 nm | NMOS | NTT | |||
1980 | 1,000 nm | NMOS | NTT | |||
1983 | 2,000 nm | CMOS | Toshiba | |||
1983 | 1,500 nm | CMOS | Intel | |||
1983 | 1,200 nm | CMOS | Intel | |||
1984 | 800 nm | CMOS | NTT | |||
1987 | 700 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu | |||
1989 | 600 nm | CMOS | Mitsubishi, NEC, Toshiba | |||
1989 | 500 nm | CMOS | Hitachi, Mitsubishi, NEC, Toshiba | |||
1991 | 400 nm | CMOS | Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Toshiba | |||
1993 | 350 nm | CMOS | Sony | |||
1993 | 250 nm | CMOS | Hitachi, NEC | |||
3LM | 32,000 | 1994 | 350 nm | CMOS | NEC | |
1995 | 160 nm | CMOS | Hitachi | |||
1996 | 150 nm | CMOS | Mitsubishi | |||
TSMC 180nm | 1998 | 180 nm | CMOS | TSMC | ||
CS80 | 1999 | 180 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu | ||
1999 | 180 nm | CMOS | Intel, Sony, Toshiba | |||
CS85 | 1999 | 170 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu | ||
Samsung 140nm | 1999 | 140 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
2001 | 130 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu, Intel | |||
Samsung 100nm | 2001 | 100 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
2002 | 90 nm | CMOS | Sony, Toshiba, Samsung | |||
CS100 | 2003 | 90 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu | ||
Intel 90nm | 1,450,000 | 2004 | 90 nm | CMOS | Intel | |
Samsung 80nm | 2004 | 80 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
2004 | 65 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu, Toshiba | |||
Samsung 60nm | 2004 | 60 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
TSMC 45nm | 2004 | 45 nm | CMOS | TSMC | ||
Elpida 90nm | 2005 | 90 nm | CMOS | Elpida Memory | ||
CS200 | 2005 | 65 nm | CMOS | Fujitsu | ||
Samsung 50nm | 2005 | 50 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
Intel 65nm | 2,080,000 | 2006 | 65 nm | CMOS | Intel | |
Samsung 40nm | 2006 | 40 nm | CMOS | Samsung | ||
Toshiba 56nm | 2007 | 56 nm | CMOS | Toshiba | ||
Matsushita 45nm | 2007 | 45 nm | CMOS | Matsushita | ||
Intel 45nm | 3,300,000 | 2008 | 45 nm | CMOS | Intel | |
Toshiba 43nm | 2008 | 43 nm | CMOS | Toshiba | ||
TSMC 40nm | 2008 | 40 nm | CMOS | TSMC | ||
Toshiba 32nm | 2009 | 32 nm | CMOS | Toshiba | ||
Intel 32nm | 7,500,000 | 2010 | 32 nm | CMOS | Intel | |
2010 | 20 nm | CMOS | Hynix, Samsung | |||
Intel 22nm | 15,300,000 | 2012 | 22 nm | CMOS | Intel | |
IMFT 20nm | 2012 | 20 nm | CMOS | IMFT | ||
Toshiba 19nm | 2012 | 19 nm | CMOS | Toshiba | ||
Hynix 16nm | 2013 | 16 nm | FinFET | SK Hynix | ||
TSMC 16nm | 28,880,000 | 2013 | 16 nm | FinFET | TSMC | |
Samsung 10nm | 51,820,000 | 2013 | 10 nm | FinFET | Samsung | |
Intel 14nm | 37,500,000 | 2014 | 14 nm | FinFET | Intel | |
14LP | 32,940,000 | 2015 | 14 nm | FinFET | Samsung | |
TSMC 10nm | 52,510,000 | 2016 | 10 nm | FinFET | TSMC | |
12LP | 36,710,000 | 2017 | 12 nm | FinFET | GlobalFoundries, Samsung | |
N7FF | 96,500,000 | 2017 | 7 nm | FinFET | TSMC | |
8LPP | 61,180,000 | 2018 | 8 nm | FinFET | Samsung | |
7LPE | 95,300,000 | 2018 | 7 nm | FinFET | Samsung | |
Intel 10nm | 100,760,000 | 2018 | 10 nm | FinFET | Intel | |
5LPE | 126,530,000 | 2018 | 5 nm | FinFET | Samsung | |
N7FF+ | 113,900,000 | 2019 | 7 nm | FinFET | TSMC | |
CLN5FF | 171,300,000 | 2019 | 5 nm | FinFET | TSMC | |
TSMC 3nm | 3 nm | TSMC | ||||
Samsung 3nm | 3 nm | GAAFET | Samsung |