Today, we are able to make a prediction of where our technology may take us 15 years from now. Our best estimates, based upon past performance, existing technology and the laws of physics, show that the microprocessor of 2011 could look like this:

• Transistors 1 Billion (435,000X the original 4004)
• Die Size 1.8" ( about the size of a half dollar)
• Frequency 10Ghz (4X the frequency of a microwave oven)
• MIPS 100,000 (equivalent to 100 thousand VAX 1180s which were as large as refrigerators and were about 1MIPS)

Andrew S. Grove
November 18, 1996

Sandybridge CPU (same time as prediction)

• 118,000 MIPS
• 1160 billion
• 216mm2 die
• 4-4.4Ghz, some can reach 5Ghz under good cooling via overclocking (only latest 14nm gen reached this again)

None of Intel CPUs ever reached 10Ghz, due to fundamental limits.