Written By Dave Pitlyuk Source: Intel Pressroom
On Feb. 23rd 1999 in Palm Springs California, The Intel Corporation succeeded in breaking the 1 GHz speed barrier. This was the first time ever that this has ever happened on a normal microprocessor. The demonstration was done in front of over 1,500 people attending the developers forum. The demonstration used a CPU meter to measure the speed which registered greater then 1 GHz or 1,000 MHz. This was done using special cooling methods and a 0.25 micron Pentium® III processor. This is an amazing feat since only six years ago the Pentium chip was running at 100 MHz using 0.8 micron process technology. Intel is hoping to have the a chip open to the market running at 1 GHz (More than twice today's speed) sometime in the year 2000. You can learn more about chips coming out in the future by checking out TechnoComp's Road to the millenium article. Also Intel expects to introduce processors using 0.18 micron process technology, which can deliver even higher frequencies.