Lecture 01

Fundamentals of
Microcomputers
Issues

Definitions
A microcomputer system
Evolution of the Microcomputer
How is a microprocessor fabricated?
Comparison b/n different types of µprocessors
based on architecture, speed, power, cost...
Definitions

Microprocessor
Control only, external memory and I/O required
8086, M68000, MIPS, SPARC, Pentium…
Microcontroller
Integrated control, memory and I/O on a single chip
AVR, PIC, 8051, MSP…
Microcomputer
Complete systems – CPU, Memory, I/O, Storage, …
PC, Mac, VAX, PDP, SunSparc
What is a µComputer system?
Memory

Input
Microprocessor Output

Microprocessor(µP):
Contains the CPU, System bus, Control unit and
(in latest models) a MMU, low level cache and
several on-chip HW
 a µComputer system…cntd
Memory
A digital data storing element
Temporary(Working) Memory:
usually made of flip-flop latches (SRAM) or
transistor-capacitor combinations(DRAM)
Permanent(storage) memory:
usually made of high capacity magnetic/optical discs
(hard drives) or solid state devices (EEPROM, flash…)
Input/output (I/O) devices
A device we use to transfer data to/from the µP; an
interface controller is required b/n the µP and the I/O
device: Keyboard, mouse, display …
 Evolution of the µP
 1958 The first integrated circuit, in Texas USA
(Jack kilby of TI, and Noyce from Fairchild)
 1965 Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel  Moore’s Law
(The No of transistors in an IC doubles every two years)
 Intel 4004… the first µP
• 1971, 4-bit
 Intel 8008
• 1972, 8-bit
• Originally designed for Datapoint Corp. as a CRT display controller
 Intel 8080
 1974, April - Altair 8800, 1975, MITS (256 bytes of mem, $395)
 Apple II -- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 1976, Apple inc.
 Bill Gates and Allen Paul: BASIC, 1975 --> Microsoft corp.
 Evolution of the µP
 Intel 8086/8088
 1978, 16 bit: 8088, 1979, 8-bit external bus
 IBM PC; 1981
 29,000 Trs.

 Intel 80286
 1982, 16-bit architecture
 24-bit addressing, memory protection and virtual memory
 16 MB of physical MEM and 1 GB of virtual mem
 130,000 Trs. onto a single chip
 IBM PC/AT in 1984, IBM PS/2 Model 50 and 60
 History of Intel’s µP…cntd
 Intel 80386
 1985, 32 bits
 3-5 MIPS (7 MIPS on the 25 MHz chip)
 memory paging and enhanced I/O permission features
 4GB programming model
 Intel 80486
• 1,200,000 Trs.
• 386+387+8K data and instruction cache, paging and MMU
…
Intel Pentium III
•1999; Pentium Pro + MMX + Internet Streaming SIMD Instructions
• 0.25 micron, 9.5 million Trs., 600 MHz, Superscalar arch.
• 32 K(16K/16K) non-blocking level 1 cache
 History of Intel’s µP…cntd

 Intel Core i7
• March 2008, Nehalem micro-architecture, 3.066GHZ
• 45nm CMOS process, 731 million trs., up to 8cores/chip
• Integrated Memory, graphics and direct media interface controller
• Simultaneous hyper-treading, turbo-boost technology,…
• 32K instruction & 32K L1 data cache/core, 256K L2 cache/core
• 8MB L3 cache, predictive Instruction execution……
(More on www.intel.com/products/processors/corei7)
 Fabrication

A microprocessor is nothing, but a large digital integrated

circuit on a semiconductor wafer.

Millions of transistors are integrated on the wafer to

construct functional circuits. Today a transistor as small as
20nm is being processed by using special CMOS process

The CMOS technology has made it possible to integrate

several useful HWs with the microprocessor core
such as: MMU, PMU, Cache, GPU, …
Fabrication…cntd

The MOS transistor MOS transistor types & symbols

Fabrication…cntd
 Compare/contrast

We can classify µPs based on

o Architecture
o Application type
o Performance (in terms of speed, power consumption...)

In modern µPs, the best features from the different types
is taken to achieve the maximum performance.

Based on Architecture/instruction set, the major

categories are RISC and CISC.
 Compare/contrast…RISC Vs CISC
CISC

 When the 8086 was introduced

Memory – expensive; Compilers – lousy; VLSI – primitive

 Keeping the encodings of common instructions short

helped in two ways.
• It made programs shorter, saving precious memory space.
• Shorter instructions can also be fetched faster.
• Assembly programming is easier
The 8086-based processors are an example of a complex
instruction set computer, or CISC, architecture.
 RISC Vs CISC…cntd
RISC

The idea of simpler instruction formats seemed radical in the 1980s.

• RISC-based programs needed more instructions and were harder
to write by hand than CISC-based ones.
• This also meant that RISC programs used more memory.
• execute simple instructions faster
Many newer processor designs use RISC, architecture
•Memory is faster and cheaper now.
•Compilers generate code instead of assembly programmers.
•Simpler hardware made advanced implementation techniques like
pipelining easier and more practical.
 Compare/contrast…performance

The processing speed is directly proportional to the system

clock frequency, the frequency is limited by the voltage
level and dissipated heat.

 Newer processor designs claim higher frequencies at lower

voltage thresholds using new production processes:
->Low power and high speed

 Performance of a µP also depends on the No. of cores in the

chip and intelligent HW/SW like, parallelism, pipelining,
on-chip caches, PMU,…