Returning to the roots of computers...

While my family and I are away for the weekend, I was lucky enough to visit the Intel Museum down in the Silicon Valley. I thought it would be important to dive into the roots of one of the biggest computer hardware companies in order to understand how hardware and software go hand-in-hand.

The Intel Building and Museum

Intel was one of the first companies to create computer hardware and is a leader in the hardware market today. Known for their processors, micro-chips, and  they use the element Silicon for their products, which is a great material for transistors. Transistors are semiconductors devices that allows for electrical switches to be turned on or off. A simple example to the idea of transistors is the language of binary code.

Original 106 members of Intel

 Transistors are important to computers as they require them to provide enough stable power to hardware running the systems. Without transistors, processors and microchips would be larger than their current sizes. What also adds to their current size is the amount of transistors silicon can use within a small piece.

Flash Memory, developed by Intel in 2010. Highest capacity, smallest NAND memory chip.

 As according to Gordon Moore's statement in 1965, the amount of transistors on a single piece of silicon has double every couple of years. This statement has been true ever since.

Description of Moore's Law

Chart of Moore's Law, 1965

Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel

The amount of hardware produced is crucial in accordance to software being developed. If hardware is not stabilized or being improved upon, then the development of software will not be able to be improved greatly, as software relies heavily on the amount of power and memory being provided by hardware.