Talk:Transistor count

message: I would like to suggest adding GPU chip into example table, because for example G80 from Nvidia counts 681 M transistors, signaling that GPU are not behind general class CPUs. --Quentar 12:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  adding gpu class example ? 

message: Hello. Can someone please explain why the Itanium is listed here although he has only 25 000 000 transistors in 2001 and the Pentium4 before him has yet 42 000 000 transistors in 2000 ?
ohe of these processors must be terminated from the list, or am i wrong? 
sry for my english, i'm german. 
134.130.78.41 16:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you're free to be WP:BOLD! I think the main problem here is we need a graphic rather than a data table. Also to plot transistors per dollar or per square millimeter rather than per chip, since the size and cost of the chips in this table varies greatly. Potatoswatter 18:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pentium 4 / Itanium problem? 

message: The Microprocessor chronology article is quite similar to this. Merge? Collaborate? -- Henriok (talk) 17:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Microprocessor chronology]] 

message: The table is not in any order now.
I started to re-organize it by Year Released, but perhaps it should be by Transistor Count?
Organizing by Year of Release makes it easier to follow Moore's Law.
Thoughts?  It certainly needs to be re-ordered to follow some logic, as right now, it follows none that I can seeDeproduction (talk) 18:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Make both columns sortable and the reader can amuse himself looking at it either way. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's too bad the sort is a string sort and not a numerical sort; kind of useless. This is the second time this week I've been disappointed at the way sorted columns work. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I changed those columns to use a numeric sort, rather than the default string sort (which I agree was useless). See Help:Sorting#Numerical sorting problems for details. The fix I used seems to be working in the "Microprocessors" and "GPUs" tables. Alas, I can't seem to get the "transistor count" column of the "FPGA" table to sort right -- how can we fix that? --DavidCary (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Table be Sorted by Year or Transistor Count? 

message: I've made a new version of the transistor count image used in this article. Please visit my talk page to make any suggestions before it is added to Moore's law and Transistor count. -- Wgsimon (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updated Image 

message: the main page says 1976  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.193.24.148 (talk) 15:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  1802 available 

message: Hello,
I see that the Transistor count for Mux 4 input is 24. I guess we are referring to the Mux built using basic Gates (AND / OR Logic). I am not able to figure out the circuit being referred here. The link leads to a circuit which would consume more transistors then 24. Can you please help me to get hold of the circuit for 4 input Mux with the transistor count to be 24? 
Thanks,
Bukka  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bukka4 (talk • contribs) 10:37, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that is referring to a mux built from pass transistor logic, such as page 3 of the datasheet for the 74HC153. By my count, each of the two 4:1 muxes on that chip includes 6 inverters and 6 transmission gates, each one built from 2 transistors -- a nFET and a pFET -- so that's where the transistor count of 24 transistors comes from. Perhaps we should include the inverters for the A and B "select" inputs as well (but not the inverters and AND gates associated with G "enable" inputs?), bringing the total to 10 inverters and 6 transmission gates, so a total of 32 transistors. --DavidCary (talk) 04:23, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transistor count for Mux 4 input is 24? 

message: 785,000 transistors seems a bit much for a 8bit microcontroller, even when fabricated in 2009  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.155.186.23 (talk) 23:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. See reference link. It was indeed ridiculous. Mightyname (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any reference for the WDC 65C02 transistor count? 

message: There's no citation, and none of the usual media outlets like anandtech seem to know either.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.244.90 (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree, at least when it comes to server parts. There is currently a reference to techpowerup.com database for Xeon Platinum 8180 that claims 8.000 bln transistors. That may seem a plausible number, but the very same number is also displayed there for any other Skylake or Cascade Lake Xeon: all models from 4-core Platinum 8256 and 8-core Bronze 3106 up to 32-core Platinum 9221 claim the same transistor count, which cannot simply be true, as the chips fall into 3 different groups of physical dies. 213.247.195.138 (talk) 13:13, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skylake Count Transistor Count Can't Be Accurate 

message: Intel have web page with information on the number of transistors used for their CPUs:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/museum-transistors-to-transformations-brochure.html
PDF
Bytesock (talk) 05:58, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source tip 

message: The lede of this article says:  which gives any reader unfamiliar with modern digital electronics the clear impression that an IC of any type can (currently) hold no more than 7.2 billion transistors.
Three paragraphs later in the article (still technically in the lede) the article says: 
Finally in the Memory section the article states:  and then in the table below it shows a 128GB DRAM chip having an estimated  (~137 billion) transistors.
I believe this article needs to clarify this for the reader, and I also think this article should provide information on the theoretical transistor count limit by each IC technology type. Comments? Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 09:27, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The numbers don't make sense to the uneducated reader. 

message: We had a long discussion with 213.81.220.134 about this subject but a big part of it is redundant/too long so I decided to remove it. You still can find it as archived here. --Samurai80 (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  FPGA - About dates of introduction 

message: --Samurai80 (talk) 09:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrap up

message: --Samurai80 (talk) 08:29, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: => As no one gave an opinion I added the subsection "Other devices" with the WSE as the only device in this new chart. Nowadays more and more computing devices, for AI, crypto currency, data centers etc. cannot be categorized in the traditional fields, CPU, GPU, FPGA etc. and I do think this category is required. Feel free to discuss here in case you are against it. --Samurai80 (talk) 07:50, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually that chip (and Graphcore) are technically microprocessors. Also according to sources: "the world’s largest microprocessor". Note, I put them in the table (and later in the lead), not realizing there was this other table with it there. Yes, they are very specialized, or the application is for AI, but really you could do something else with them. They are accelerators, not standalone CPUs (while that's even debatable): "The WSE — “CPU” simply doesn’t seem sufficient" [EDIT: WSE may or may not be a microprocessor, see here] comp.arch (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your answer. I understand your point, and saying it's a microprocessor is as you say technically not wrong. However as explained in this section: Microprocessor#Special-purpose_designs "microprocessor" is the term for general purpose. In the current article specialized circuits such as GPUs are put in different categories. If the WSE was to be put into the microprocessor category then GPUs should also. I actually think the microprocessor category should be renamed "CPU" in my opinion. And circuits that are not CPUs (storage controllers, AI, etc) should be moved to "other chips". Or at the opposite, put everything that is not a memory, including GPUs, into microprocessor. Else I don't see why you would mix CPUs with specialized circuits and put GPUs in a different category. I had not looked to the CPU section recently but to be honest it seems quite messy to me, and there are quite a few types of chips that are structurally so far from CPUs (massively parallel structures for instance) that they shouldn't be put into the same category. --Samurai80 (talk) 11:18, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me if you change to CPU, then you would have to merge the "Transistor computers" section/table into that section. I'm ok with having WSE (and Graphcore?) in separate table, and possibly mention in that section. comp.arch (talk) 17:55, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess you are right, microprocessors is fine. I will move only the most obvious examples to the "Other devices" category. PS: I moved only the Graphcore as you recommended. I wonder if at some point it would be a good idea to make sub categories out of the microprocessor category (for instance, Personal Computers CPUs, Mobile CPUs and SoCs, Microcontrollers, Interface controllers etc.) since it's pretty big and a bit heterogenous, but this may not be that simple and things aren't often that easy to categorize. It's also slightly odd that I haven't found any DSP in this article (maybe I haven't searched enough though). --Samurai80 (talk) 10:25, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  About other chips 

message: In terms of computer systems that consist of numerous integrated circuits, the supercomputer with the highest transistor count  is the Chinese-designed Sunway TaihuLight, which has for all CPUs/nodes (1 trillion for the 10 million cores and for RAM 1015 for the 1.3 million GB) combined "about 400 trillion transistors in the processing part of the hardware" and "the DRAM includes about 12 quadrillion transistors, and that's about 97 percent of all the transistors."
I thought maybe this was breaking down the 400 trillion between core and and on-die SRAM, but the values given don't add up. Parenthetic removed until such time as some other editor can revise this into comprehensibility. 
Additionally, it was badly placed in the sentence and that needs to be addressed too before this is restored. — MaxEnt 15:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incomprehensible parenthetic 

message: One of the editors deleted my A14 Entry. Shouldn't we have both of these entries? The transistor counts for iPhones and Desktops are different. Keeping both entries allows readers to compare iPhone chips over time. M1 Should also be included so over time as M series Chips are produced, readers can look back at the progression. 73.110.210.136 (talk) 16:46, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apple A14 and M1 chip Entries 

message: Greetings to all. 
Years ago, I used to refer to this page once in a while for a quick reference, but after checking it a month ago, I was shocked at how outdated it became – stark contrast with, say, AMD/Nvidia GPU lists or EUV article, which are excellent examples of what an article can and should be like. With many latest references on this page going back to 2019-2020, it looks like COVID-19 has taken its toll on it. I made numerous updates over the past month (along with updating 2nm, 3nm and 5nm pages) – all recent anonymous edits (217.xxx and 188.xxx) here and there are mine, and there's still a lot of work to do. 
Besides, we can improve the page in at least one principal way. One nice thing to have here is a "transistor density" column for CPUs, GPUs etc. containing ratio of transistor count over die size, another one – a column containing ratio of above-mentioned value to cell-level transistor density which is transistor density calculated using Mark Bohr's metric (60/40 weighted average of flip-flop and NAND gate densities, IIRC) and which is currently quoted on this page with references to SemiWiki or WikiChip (at least for processes introduced in recent years). 
The problem with the latter density metric is that it's not necessarily representative of transistor density for a given chip (ratio of its transistor count to its die size). For some, e.g. Apple, it's close; for others, e.g. Intel, it's very far – based on their own quotations of cell-level process node densities and transistor counts, while for designs where most of chip area is in LLC, overall transistor density is not too far from that in LLC tile, and therefore it's SRAM or eDRAM cell area which not only must be present in proper metric, but for LLC-dominated designs its weight coefficient shall be the highest!
Furthermore, contrary to what advocates of this metric hint at (Bohr, Scotten Jones etc.), above-mentioned discrepancy is not necessarily because of poor work done by IC design team; it can be direct consequence of poor work done by process engineers, e.g. when high self-heating of transistors (which is one of the key things to look at in order to judge how good a process technology is) forces logic designers to introduce large guard bands into design in order for a chip to operate without local hot spots, or work at all.
By the way, Intel stopped publishing transistor counts back in 2014 or 2015, if memory serves, and, I suspect, for the very reason of huge discrepancy between cell-level densities which their process folks boasted on one hand and transistor densities in their chips on the other (IIRC, around 40 Mt/mm2 for 14nm process and only 10-16 Mt/mm2 for 14nm chips), quoting instead only cell-level densities calculated using Bohr's density metric Intel introduced around the time of announcement of their infamous 10nm process and then boasted for years about "industry-leading" density of over 100 Mt/mm2 for essentially non-working process! 
Bohr's proposal didn't go unnoticed by press, and response was predictable: people from the industry pointed at the gap between transistor density in Intel's chips and the numbers Bohr's metric and Intel's promo slides started showing. However, for reasons which clearly have nothing to do with science or technology, the metric caught on with a few advocates like Scotten Jones and got propagated. 
As a result, a lot of transistor density numbers posted across the web, including this page, are somewhat misleading (don't boast 40 Mt/mm2 if all you can achieve in a working chip is 10–16 – the case of Intel's 14nm process) and, worse, non-neutral as long as densities calculated using only Bohr's metric are presented – which is something Wikipedia articles should be free of. 
Fortunately, it's not that hard to fix. Unfortunately, I may not have enough free time to complete this task, not to mention updating all of the obsolete data on this page. I'll do what I can in the nearest future until upcoming work prevents me from taking care of the page further (at least on a regular basis), so if at the time you are reading this you see this task wasn't finished, please contribute to completing it using my edits as examples along with further updates of obsolete references, lest the page should become completely out of date. 
For a better page and with kind regards to everyone who contributed here before, 
AM 
188.66.35.63 (talk) 16:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keeping the page up-to-date and transistor density – call for action (May 2022) 

message: GPU table needs quite a bit of cleanup, it seems. I fixed several inaccuracies today, will fix some more time permitting. Will also co-locate GPUs of the same family for ease of use – the table not only looks way better after first few edits, now checking density variation within a family is a breeze! If I do it only half-way before leaving regular maintenance, please do what you can to complete it.
Transistor density update: finished with adding densities to all of the tables, atm thinking what would be the best way to add cell-level and chip-level densities and the ratio of the two. Current plan is to add two more columns to the process table only, but I'll give it a thought for a few days more before going ahead.
Best regards,
AM 188.66.35.25 (talk) 09:32, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  To future maintainers and contributors: GPU table needs cleanup, transistor density update (June 1 2022) 

message: The citation is from before the process was in use and I don't even see the number on the linked page.  This article suggests the true number is more in the realm of 183m https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process 192.147.66.4 (talk) 14:45, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: While I still cannot find the 314730000 number, I do notice something on the talk page of that article. It states that the A17 pro doesn't even use the N3 process, so the density number of 183m might be wrong too. 192.147.66.4 (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transistor density of N3 wrong 314,730,000