Microprocessor-based systems are ideal for executing an essentially infinite number of tasks. The host microprocessors support a limited set of instructions that can combine to produce incredibly ...

Christopher Intagliata: Microchips are everywhere: they’re in our computers and smartphones, of course, but also TVs, thermostats, fridges, washing machines, cars. That ever growing constellation of ...

As NPR marks its 50th anniversary, we look back at an innovation that also changed the world in 1971: the unveiling of the first commercially produced microprocessor. NPR turned 50 this year. And to ...

We continue our guide to high-tech architecture by looking at the Inmos Microprocessor Factory, a key example of Richard Rogers' radical inside-out buildings. Completed in 1982 in Newport, Wales, the ...

The processors in today’s computers have grown tremendously in performance, capabilities and complexity over the past decade. Clock speed has skyrocketed, and size has dwindled, even as the number of ...

This January, a video game chip started a scientific reckoning. It all began when some "microchip archaeologists" photographed the chip---the MOS 6502 microprocessor that lived inside Atari---and ...