Intel Corp., the world’s largest supplier of microprocessors used in personal computers, said it had shipped more than 50 million of its desktop, server and mobile processors with Hyper-Threading technology since its inception about two years ago.

“We created Hyper-Threading technology with two main objectives in mind. The first was to provide a boost in computing performance beyond clock speed in a platform-centric manner to manage a variety of tasks and commands simultaneously. Secondly, the technology was our initial foray into parallel processing to better prepare the industry for the inevitable move to multi-core processors and computers” said Louis Burns, Intel vice president and general manager of the Desktop Platforms Group.

HT is a technology that allows one chip to emulate two processing engines and execute two threads of code simultaneously provided that the threads utilize different circuits of the microprocessor. Performance boosts vary, and can reach up to 25% when the computer system has an Intel processor with HT Technology and enabled chipset, BIOS, operating system and application software, according to Intel’s estimations.

All Intel's NetBurst-based Xeon processors supported the Hyper-Threading technology from their introduction in 2001.

Intel introduced its first desktop processor with HT technology – Intel Pentium 4 chip 3.06GHz – in November 2002. Central processing units with Hyper-Threading capability emerged in more or less mass quantities targeting various market segments in May, 2003, when Intel rolled-out its i865PE and i875P platforms along with HT-enabled microprocessors priced from $178.

In 2005 Intel pledges to deliver dual-core chips for desktop, mobile and server computers.