<
processor>
Intel's
superscalar successor to the
486.
It has two 32-bit 486-type integer
pipelines with dependency
checking. It can execute a maximum of two instructions per
cycle. It does pipelined
floating-point and performs
branch prediction. It has 16
kilobytes of on-chip
cache, a 64-bit memory interface, 8 32-bit general-purpose
registers and 8 80-bit
floating-point registers. It is
built from 3.1 million transistors on a 262.4 mm^2 die with
Pentium2.3 million transistors in the core logic. Its
clock rate
is 66MHz, heat dissipation is 16W, integer performance is 64.5
SPECint92,
floating-point performance 56.9
SPECfp92.
It is called "Pentium" because it is the fifth in the 80x86
line. It would have been called the
80586 had a US court not
ruled that you can't trademark a number.
The successors are the
Pentium Pro and
Pentium II.
The following Pentium variants all belong to "x86 Family 6",
as reported by "Microsoft Windows" when identifying the CPU:
Model Name
1 Pentium Pro
2 ?
3 Pentium II
4 ?
5, 6 Celeron or Pentium II
7 Pentium III
8 Celeron uPGA2 or Mobile Pentium III
A {
floating-point division bug
(ftp://ftp.isi.edu/pub/carlton/pentium/FAQ)} was discovered in
October 1994.
[
Internal implementation, "Microprocessor Report" newsletter,
1993-03-29, volume 7, number 4].
[
Pentium based computers, PC Magazine, 1994-01-25].
(2003-09-30)