Pascal (microarchitecture)
Pascal is the codename for a GPU microarchitecture developed by Nvidia, as the successor to the Maxwell architecture. The architecture was first introduced in April 2016 with the release of the Tesla P100 (GP100) on April 5, 2016, and is primarily used in the GeForce 10 series, starting with the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, which were released on May 27, 2016, and June 10, 2016, respectively. Pascal was manufactured using TSMC's 16 nm FinFET process, and later Samsung's 14 nm FinFET process.
Painting of Blaise Pascal, eponym of architecture
Die shot of the GP100 GPU used in Nvidia Tesla P100 cards
Die shot of the GP102 GPU found inside GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit initially designed to accelerate computer graphics and image processing. After their initial design, GPUs were found to be useful for non-graphic calculations involving embarrassingly parallel problems due to their parallel structure. Other non-graphical uses include the training of neural networks and cryptocurrency mining.
Atari ANTIC microprocessor on an Atari 130XE motherboard
NEC μPD7220A
The IBM 8514 Micro Channel adapter, with memory add-on
VGA section on the motherboard in IBM PS/55