Nostalgia

Today marks a full 10 years since the first Core 2 processors, and hence Intel’s 64-bit Core microarchitecture, were made officially available. These included a number of popular dual-core processor parts, including the seemingly ubiquitous E6400 and the Core 2 Extreme X6800. These were built on Intel’s 65nm process, and marked a turning point in the desktop processor ecosystem. To quote Anand in our launch review: ‘you’re looking at the most impressive piece of silicon the world has ever seen’. Today’s anniversary is somewhat bittersweet, as this week saw the official launch of the ‘final’ biannual International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors report which predicts the stalling of smaller silicon manufacturing nodes and the progression of new design paradigms to tackle the next 10-15 years...