Designed for high-end servers rather than personal computers, Tukwila, the quad-core chip from Intel, is the first chip to incorporate more than two billion transistors.

Although the new chip includes more than 2 billion transistors, it operates at a relatively modest speed of 2GHz, the equivalent of many PC chips.

A large number of the transistors on the new Intel chip are used for memory. Cache memory holds data to be processed by the chip. The closer it is to the processor, the quicker the data can be processed.

The chips are aimed at firms demanding more performance, and that are willing to sacrifice power to get it.