Past, Present and Future of Microprocessors

Microprocessors are one of the most important technical phenomena of the end of this century. Since twenty-five years their computing power and complexity have increased at sustained rates. Microprocessors are increasingly playing a major role in modern society. The "invisible" ones, used for controlling and monitoring machine tools, cars, aircraft, consumer electronics and other equipment are the most numerous. They are gradually changing the relationship we have with these devices. It is interesting to show that this is a "market-pull" rather than a "technology-push" phenomenon. The design of new chips thus represents a continuous challenge for the engineers and technologists striving to give the market the products it requires, and which are generally planned a long time before they actually appear. Monolithic microprocessors are overtaking all kinds of computers. Minicomputer lines were absorbed during the 80's, main-frame lines during the 90's and probably super-computers by the b..