15.01.2024 Views

CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

  • No tags were found...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

portable computers. Most of Intel’s desktop and laptop processors are sold

under the Core, Pentium, and Celeron brands. Their high-end server chips are

called Xeon.

AMD

AMD makes superb CPUs for the PC market and provides competition that

keeps Intel on its toes. Like Intel, AMD doesn’t just make CPUs, but their

CPU business is certainly the part that the public notices. AMD has made

CPUs that clone the function of Intel CPUs. If Intel invented the CPU used in

the original IBM PC, how could AMD make clone CPUs without getting

sued? Chipmakers have a habit of exchanging technologies through crosslicense

agreements. Way back in 1976, AMD and Intel signed just such an

agreement, giving AMD the right to copy certain types of CPUs.

The trouble started with the Intel 8088. Intel needed AMD’s help to

supply enough CPUs to satisfy IBM’s demands. But after a few years, Intel

had grown tremendously and no longer wanted AMD to make CPUs. AMD

said, “Too bad. See this agreement you signed?” Throughout the 1980s and

into the 1990s, AMD made pin-for-pin identical CPUs that matched the Intel

lines of CPUs (see Figure 3-19). You could yank an Intel CPU out of a

system and snap in an AMD CPU—no problem!

Figure 3-19 Electronically identical Intel and AMD 486 CPUs from the early

1990s

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!