Ken Shirriff on Nostr: The original Pentium chip was introduced in 1993. It was the first "superscalar" x86 ...

The original Pentium chip was introduced in 1993. It was the first "superscalar" x86 chip, able to run two instructions per clock cycle. I took this die photo of the chip yesterday. The chip has three metal layers; the thick lines you see are the top metal layer, mostly power and ground. The silicon itself is almost entirely obscured. Around the edges of the chip, tiny bond wires connect to the bond pads, providing the connections to the chip's external pins. 1/N