2-4
INTRODUCTION TO THE INTEL ARCHITECTURE
Pentium
®
II processors utilize multiple low-power states such as AutoHALT, Stop-Grant, Sleep,
and Deep Sleep to conserve power during idle times.
The newest processor in the IA is the Pentium
®
III processor. It is based on the Pentium
®
Pro
and Pentium
®
II processors architectures. The Pentium
®
III processor introduces 70 new instruc-
tions to the IA instruction set. These instructions target existing functional units within the archi-
tecture as well as the new SIMD-floating-point unit. More detailed discussion of the new
features in the Pentium
®
Pro, Pentium
®
II, and Pentium
®
III processors is provided in Section
2.4., Introduction to the P6 Family Processors Advanced Microarchitecture and Section 2.5.,
Detailed Description of the P6 FaMILY Processor Microarchitecture. More detailed hardware
and architectural information on each of the generations of the IA family is available in the sepa-
rate data books for the processor generations (Section 1.5., Related Literature in Chapter 1,
About This Manual).
2.2.INCREASING INTEL ARCHITECTURE PERFORMANCE AND
MOORES LAW
In the mid-1960s, Intel Chairman of the Board Gordon Moore deduced a principle or law
which has continued to be true for over three decades: the computing power and the complexity
(or roughly, the number of transistors per CPU chip) of the silicon integrated circuit micropro-
cessor doubles every one to two years, and the cost per CPU chip is cut in half. This law is the
main explanation for the computer revolution, in which the IA plays such a significant role.
