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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chris Sholler who wrote (47921)	2/16/1998 4:38:00 PM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Chris - Re: "Floating Point! So what else am I missing?" On board L1 cache and cache controller On board L2 Cache controller On board Memory Management Unit - for handling protected mode features. On board paging control mechanisms As for the other items you mention, you are pretty much correct - Intel tried, and tries, to get the CPU to perform more and more operations that are part of extra silicon (video display, audio, modems) but by and large they have been only partially successful. The gains in processing power achieved by Intel are matched or exceeded by new applications and increased requirements for older applications. Intel appears to approach that dilemma with tact - adding more functions in silicon in the chip sets. Historically, this is where the major "system integration" has occurred - although not pioneered by Intel. Originally, an "IBM PC" had discrete chips for DMA, counters/timers, interrupt controllers, clock generators and system bus expansion and I/O. Chips and Technology was one of the first to collect all these functions into a few ASICS (now called a Chip Set) and they did the same for the old EGA graphics display controller. Today, most of these combined functions are headed for the "chip set". Paul