The transistor count is the number of
transistors in an electronic device (typically on a single substrate or "chip"). It is the most common measure of
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
complexity (although the majority of transistors in modern
microprocessors are contained in the
cache memories, which consist mostly of the same
memory cell circuits replicated many times). The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows
Moore's law
Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empir ...
, which observed that the transistor count doubles approximately every two years. However, being directly proportional to the area of a chip, transistor count doesn't represent how advanced corresponding manufacturing technology is, which is better characterized by transistor density instead (ratio of transistor count of a chip to its area).
, the largest transistor count in a commercially available microprocessor is 114billion transistors, in
Apple's
ARM-based dual-die
M1 Ultra system on a chip, which is fabricated using
TSMC's
5 nm
In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems defines the 5 nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 7 nm node. In 2020, Samsung and TSMC entered volume production of 5 nm chips, ...
semiconductor manufacturing process
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pr ...
.
, the highest transistor count
GPU is
Nvidia's
H100, built on
TSMC's N4 process and totalling 80 billion MOSFETs. , the highest transistor count in flash memory was
Micron's 2
terabyte (
3D-stacked) 16-die, 232-layer
V-NAND flash
memory chip, with 5.3trillion
floating-gate MOSFETs (
3bits per transistor). , the highest transistor count in any IC chip is a
deep learning
Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised.
De ...
engine called the
Wafer Scale Engine 2 by
Cerebras
Cerebras Systems is an American artificial intelligence company with offices in Sunnyvale and San Diego, Toronto, Tokyo and Bangalore, India. Cerebras builds computer systems for complex artificial intelligence deep learning applications.
Histo ...
, using a special design to route around any non-functional core on the device; it has 2.6trillion MOSFETs in 84 exposed fields (dies) on a wafer, manufactured using TSMC's FinFET process.
In terms of
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
systems that consist of numerous integrated circuits, the
supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
with the highest transistor count is the Chinese-designed
Sunway TaihuLight
The Sunway TaihuLight ( ''Shénwēi·tàihú zhī guāng'') is a Chinese supercomputer which, , is ranked fourth in the TOP500 list, with a LINPACK benchmark rating of 93 petaflops. The name is translated as ''divine power, the light of Taihu Lak ...
, which has for all CPUs/nodes combined "about 400 trillion transistors in the processing part of the hardware" and "the
DRAM
Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxid ...
includes about 12
quadrillion transistors, and that's about 97 percent of all the transistors."
To compare, the
smallest computer, dwarfed by a grain of rice, has on the order of 100,000 transistors. Early experimental solid-state computers had as few as 130 transistors but used large amounts of
diode logic. The first
carbon nanotube computer
Carbon nanotube computers are a class of experimental computing processors constructed from carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, instead of from conventional silicon-based field-effect transistors. __NOTOC__
In a carbon nanotube field-effe ...
has 178 transistors and is a
1-bit one-instruction set computer, while a later one is
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...
(its the
instruction set
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ' ...
is 32-bit
RISC-V though).
Ionic transistor chips ("water-based"
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analo ...
limited processor), have up to hundreds of such transistors.
In terms of the total number of transistors in existence, it has been estimated that a total of 13
sextillion
Two naming scales for large numbers have been used in English and other European languages since the early modern era: the long and short scales. Most English variants use the short scale today, but the long scale remains dominant in many non-Eng ...
() transistors have been manufactured worldwide between 1960 and 2018.
Transistor count
Microprocessors
A
microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's
central processing unit on a single
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
. It is a multi-purpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output.
The development of
MOS integrated circuit technology in the 1960s led to the development of the first microprocessors.
The 20-bit
MP944, developed by
Garrett AiResearch for the
U.S. Navy's
F-14 Tomcat fighter in 1970, is considered by its designer
Ray Holt to be the first microprocessor.
It was a multi-chip microprocessor, fabricated on six MOS chips. However, it was classified by the Navy until 1998. The
4-bit
In computer architecture, 4-bit integers, or other data units are those that are 4 bits wide. Also, 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, or data buses of that si ...
Intel 4004, released in 1971, was the first single-chip microprocessor.
Modern microprocessors typically include on-chip
cache memories. The number of transistors used for these cache memories typically far exceeds the number of transistors used to implement the logic of the microprocessor (that is, excluding the cache). For example, the last
DEC Alpha chip uses 90% of its transistors for cache.
GPUs
A
graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display.
The designer refers to the
technology company that designs the logic of the
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
chip (such as
Nvidia and
AMD). The manufacturer refers to the
semiconductor company that fabricates the chip using its
semiconductor manufacturing process
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pr ...
at a
foundry (such as
TSMC and
Samsung Semiconductor
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, ac ...
). The transistor count in a chip is dependent on a manufacturer's fabrication process, with smaller
semiconductor nodes typically enabling higher transistor density and thus higher transistor counts.
The
random-access memory (RAM) that comes with GPUs (such as
VRAM,
SGRAM or
HBM) greatly increase the total transistor count, with the
memory typically accounting for the majority of transistors in a
graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
. For example,
Nvidia's
Tesla P100
Nvidia Tesla was the name of Nvidia's line of products targeted at stream processing or general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU), named after pioneering electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. Its products began using GPUs from the G80 ser ...
has 15billion
FinFETs (
16 nm) in the GPU in addition to 16
GB of
HBM2 memory, totaling about 150billion
MOSFET
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s on the graphics card. The following table does not include the memory. For memory transistor counts, see the ''
Memory'' section below.
FPGA
A
field-programmable gate array
A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware d ...
(FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing.
Memory
Semiconductor memory
Semiconductor memory is a digital electronic semiconductor device used for digital data storage, such as computer memory. It typically refers to devices in which data is stored within metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) memory cells on a sili ...
is an electronic
data storage device
Data storage is the recording (storing) of information (data) in a storage medium. Handwriting, phonographic recording, magnetic tape, and optical discs are all examples of storage media. Biological molecules such as RNA and DNA are conside ...
, often used as
computer memory, implemented on
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
s. Nearly all semiconductor memory since the 1970s have used
MOSFET
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
s (MOS transistors), replacing earlier
bipolar junction transistors. There are two major types of semiconductor memory,
random-access memory (RAM) and
non-volatile memory (NVM). In turn, there are two major RAM types,
dynamic random-access memory
Dynamic random-access memory (dynamic RAM or DRAM) is a type of random-access semiconductor memory that stores each bit of data in a memory cell, usually consisting of a tiny capacitor and a transistor, both typically based on metal-oxide ...
(DRAM) and
static random-access memory (SRAM), as well as two major NVM types,
flash memory
Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
and
read-only memory (ROM).
Typical
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
SRAM consists of six transistors per cell. For DRAM, 1T1C, which means one transistor and one capacitor structure, is common. Capacitor charged or not is used to store 1 or 0. For flash memory, the data is stored in floating gate, and the resistance of the transistor is sensed to interpret the data stored. Depending on how fine scale the resistance could be separated, one transistor could store up to 3-
bits, meaning eight distinctive level of resistance possible per transistor. However, the fine the scale comes with cost of repeatability therefore reliability. Typically, low grade 2-bits
MLC flash
In electronics, a multi-level cell (MLC) is a memory cell capable of storing more than a single bit of information, compared to a single-level cell (SLC), which can store only one bit per memory cell. A memory cell typically consists of a single ...
is used for
flash drives, so a 16
GB flash drive contains roughly 64 billion transistors.
For SRAM chips, six-transistor cells (six transistors per bit) was the standard.
DRAM chips during the early 1970s had three-transistor cells (three transistors per bit), before single-transistor cells (one transistor per bit) became standard since the era of 4
Kb DRAM in the mid-1970s.
In
single-level flash memory, each cell contains one
floating-gate MOSFET (one transistor per bit), whereas
multi-level flash contains 2, 3 or 4 bits per transistor.
Flash memory chips are commonly stacked up in layers, up to 128-layer in production, and 136-layer managed, and available in end-user devices up to 69-layer from manufacturers.
Transistor computers
Before transistors were invented,
relays were used in commercial
tabulating machines and experimental early computers. The world's first working
programmable, fully automatic
digital computer, the 1941
Z3 22-
bit word length computer, had 2,600 relays, and operated at a
clock frequency of about 4–5
Hz. The 1940 Complex Number Computer had fewer than 500 relays, but it was not fully programmable. The earliest practical computers used
vacuum tubes and solid-state
diode logic.
ENIAC had 18,000 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, and 1,500 relays, with many of the vacuum tubes containing two
triode elements.
The second generation of computers were
transistor computers that featured boards filled with discrete transistors, solid-state diodes and
magnetic memory cores. The experimental 1953
48-bit
In computer architecture, 48-bit integers can represent 281,474,976,710,656 (248 or 2.814749767×1014) discrete values. This allows an unsigned binary integer range of 0 through 281,474,976,710,655 (248 − 1) or a signed two's complement ra ...
Transistor Computer, developed at the
University of Manchester, is widely believed to be the first transistor computer to come into operation anywhere in the world (the prototype had 92 point-contact transistors and 550 diodes).
A later version the 1955 machine had a total of 250 junction transistors and 1300 point-contact diodes. The Computer also used a small number of tubes in its clock generator, so it was not the first transistorized. The ETL Mark III, developed at the
Electrotechnical Laboratory
The , or AIST, is a Japanese research facility headquartered in Tokyo, and most of the workforce is located in Tsukuba Science City, Ibaraki, and in several cities throughout Japan. The institute is managed to integrate scientific and engineeri ...
in 1956, may have been the first transistor-based electronic computer using the
stored program method. It had about "130 point-contact transistors and about 1,800 germanium diodes were used for logic elements, and these were housed on 300 plug-in packages which could be slipped in and out."
The 1958
decimal architecture
Decimal computers are computers which can represent numbers and addresses in decimal as well as providing instructions to operate on those numbers and addresses directly in decimal, without conversion to a pure binary representation. Some also ha ...
IBM 7070 was the first transistor computer to be fully programmable. It had about 30,000 alloy-junction germanium transistors and 22,000 germanium diodes, on approximately 14,000
Standard Modular System
The Standard Modular System (SMS) is a system of standard transistorized circuit boards and mounting racks developed by IBM in the late 1950s, originally for the IBM 7030 Stretch. They were used throughout IBM's second-generation computers, peri ...
(SMS) cards. The 1959
MOBIDIC
Sylvania's MOBIDIC, short for "MOBIle DIgital Computer", was a transistorized computer intended to store, sort and route information as one part of the United States Army's Fieldata concept. Fieldata aimed to automate the distribution of battle ...
, short for "MOBIle DIgital Computer", at 12,000 pounds (6.0 short tons) mounted in the trailer of a
semi-trailer truck, was a transistorized computer for battlefield data.
The third generation of computers used
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
s (ICs).
The 1962
15-bit Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a digital computer produced for the Apollo program that was installed on board each Apollo command module (CM) and Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The AGC provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidan ...
used "about 4,000 "Type-G" (3-input NOR gate) circuits" for about 12,000 transistors plus 32,000 resistors.
The
IBM System/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
, introduced 1964, used discrete transistors in
hybrid circuit packs.
The 1965
12-bit
Possibly the best-known 12-bit CPU is the PDP-8 and its relatives, such as the Intersil 6100 microprocessor produced in various forms from August 1963 to mid-1990. Many analog to digital converters (ADCs) have a 12-bit resolution. Some PIC micr ...
PDP-8 CPU had 1409 discrete transistors and over 10,000 diodes, on many cards. Later versions, starting with the 1968 PDP-8/I, used integrated circuits. The PDP-8 was later reimplemented as a microprocessor as the
Intersil 6100, see below.
The next generation of computers were the
microcomputer
A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...
s, starting with the 1971
Intel 4004. which used
MOS
MOS or Mos may refer to:
Technology
* MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), also known as the MOS transistor
* Mathematical Optimization Society
* Model output statistics, a weather-forecasting technique
* MOS (filmm ...
transistors. These were used in
home computers or
personal computers (PCs).
This list includes early transistorized computers (second generation) and IC-based computers (third generation) from the 1950s and 1960s.
Logic functions
Transistor count for generic logic functions is based on static
CMOS
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
implementation.
Parallel systems
Historically, each processing element in earlier parallel systems—like all CPUs of that time—was a
serial computer
A serial computer is a computer typified by bit-serial architecture i.e., internally operating on one bit or digit for each clock cycle. Machines with serial main storage devices such as acoustic or magnetostrictive delay lines and rotating ma ...
built out of multiple chips. As transistor counts per chip increases, each processing element could be built out of fewer chips, and then later each
multi-core processor chip could contain more processing elements.
[
]
Goodyear MPP: (1983?) 8 pixel processors per chip, 3,000 to 8,000 transistors per chip.
Brunel University Scape (single-chip array-processing element): (1983) 256 pixel processors per chip, 120,000 to 140,000 transistors per chip.
Cell Broadband Engine
Cell is a multi-core microprocessor microarchitecture that combines a general-purpose PowerPC core of modest performance with streamlined coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications, as well as ma ...
: (2006) with 9 cores per chip, had 234 million transistors per chip.
[
]
Other devices
Transistor density
The transistor density is the number of transistors that are
fabricated per unit area, typically measured in terms of the number of transistors per
square millimeter
The square metre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square meter (American spelling) is the unit of area in the International System of Units (SI) with symbol m2. It is the area of a square ...
(mm
2). The transistor density usually correlates with the
gate
A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word derived from old Norse "gat" meaning road or path; But other terms include ''yett and port''. The concept originally referred to the gap or hole in the wall ...
length of a
semiconductor node (also known as a
semiconductor manufacturing process
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to manufacture semiconductor devices, typically integrated circuit (IC) chips such as modern computer processors, microcontrollers, and memory chips such as NAND flash and DRAM that are pr ...
), typically measured in
nanometers (nm). , the semiconductor node with the highest transistor density is TSMC's
5 nanometer
In semiconductor manufacturing, the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems defines the 5 nm process as the MOSFET technology node following the 7 nm node. In 2020, Samsung and TSMC entered volume production of 5 nm chips, ...
node, with 171.3million transistors per square millimeter (note this corresponds to a transistor-transistor spacing of 76.4 nm, far greater than the relative meaningless "5nm")
MOSFET nodes
See also
*
Gate count {{unreferenced, date=December 2015
In microprocessor design, gate count refers to the number of logic gates built with transistors and other electronic devices, that are needed to implement a design. Even with today's processor technology providing ...
, an alternate metric
*
Dennard scaling Dennard scaling, also known as MOSFET scaling, is a scaling law which states roughly that, as transistors get smaller, their power density stays constant, so that the power use stays in proportion with area; both voltage and current scale (downward) ...
*
Electronics industry
The electronics industry is the economic sector that produces electronic devices. It emerged in the 20th century and is today one of the largest global industries. Contemporary society uses a vast array of electronic devices built-in automated or ...
*
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
*
List of best-selling electronic devices
*
List of semiconductor scale examples
*
MOSFET
The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
*
Semiconductor
*
Semiconductor device
A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity li ...
*
Semiconductor device fabrication
*
Semiconductor industry
The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...
*
Transistor
*
Cerebras Systems
Notes
References
External links
Transistor counts of Intel processorsEvolution of FPGA Architecture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Transistor Count
Integrated circuits
MOSFETs
Count