Microprocessor technology trends

The rapid pace of advancement of microprocessor technology has shown no sign of diminishing, and this pace is expected to continue in the future. Recent trends in such areas as silicon technology, processor architecture and implementation, system organization, buses, higher levels of integration, self-testing, caches, coprocessors, and fault tolerance are discussed, and expectations for further advances are highlighted. How these trends and expectations will drive the markets and applications, and vice versa, is also explored.