THE THIRD GENERATION: Integrated Circuits &

Later Generation.
About third-generation computers

• Developer of Integrated Circuit are Robert

Noyce and Jack Kilby.

• It was developed in 1958

• The third generation computer era was

started in 1965 and ended around 1971.
• A single, self-contained transistor is called a discrete component.
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, electronic equipment was
composed largely of discrete components—transistors, resistors,
capacitors, and so on.

• In 1958 came the achievement that revolutionized electronics and

started the era of microelectronics: the invention of the integrated
circuit. It is the integrated circuit that defines the third generation of
computers.

• MICROELECTRONICS means, literally, “small electronics.” Since the

beginnings of digital electronics and the computer industry, there has
been a persistent and consistent trend toward the reduction in size of
digital electronic circuits.
• The basic elements of a digital computer, as we know, must perform storage,
movement, processing, and control functions. Only two fundamental types of
components are required : gates and memory cells.

Four Basic Function

• Data storage
• Data processing
• Data movement
• Control
• Depicts the key concepts in an integrated circuit. A
thin wafer of silicon is divided into a matrix of small
areas, each a few millimeters square. The identical
circuit pattern is fabricated in each area, and the
wafer is broken up into chips

• Every single chip contains of many gates and/or

memory cells plus a number of input and output
attachment points.

• This chip is then packaged in housing that protects it

and provides pins for attachment to devices beyond
the chip.

• These early integrated circuits are referred to as small

scale integration (SSI). As time went on, it became
possible to pack more and more components on the
same chip.
• The famous Moore’s law, which was propounded by Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel, in 1965 [MOOR65].

• Moore observed that the number of transistors that could be put on a single chip was doubling every year and
correctly predicted that this pace would continue into the near future.

• The consequences of Moore’s law are profound:

• 1. The cost of a chip has remained virtually unchanged during this period of rapid growth in density. This means
that the cost of computer logic and memory circuitry has fallen at a dramatic rate.

• 2. Because logic and memory elements are placed closer together on more densely packed chips, the electrical
path length is shortened, increasing operating speed.

• 3. The computer becomes smaller, making it more convenient to place in a variety of environments.

• 4. There is a reduction in power and cooling requirements.

• 5. The interconnections on the integrated circuit are much more reliable than solder connections. With more
circuitry on each chip, there are fewer interchip connections.
• IBM SYSTEM/360 By 1964, IBM had a firm grip on the computer market with its 7000 series of
machines. In that year, IBM announced the System/360, a new family of computer products.
Although the announcement itself was no surprise, it contained some unpleasant news for
current IBM customers: the 360 product line was incompatible with older IBM machines. Thus,
the transition to the 360 would be difficult for the current customer base.

• This was a bold step by IBM, but one IBM felt was necessary to break out of some of the
constraints of the 7000 architecture and to produce a system capable of evolving with the new
integrated circuit technology [PADE81, GIFF87].

• The System/360 was the industry’s first planned family of computers. The family covered a wide
range of performance and cost. Indicates some of the key characteristics of the various models in
1965.

• The concept of a family of compatible computers was both novel and extremely successful. A
customer with modest requirements and a budget to match could start with the relatively
inexpensive Model 30.
• Similar or identical instruction set: In many cases, the exact same set of machine instructions is
supported on all members of the family. Thus, a program that executes on one machine will also
execute on any other. In some cases, the lower end of the family has an instruction set that is a
subset of that of the top end of the family. This means that programs can move up but not down.

• Similar or identical operating system: The same basic operating system is available for all family
members. In some cases, additional features are added to the higher-end members.

• Increasing speed: The rate of instruction execution increases in going from lower to higher
family members.

• Increasing number of I/O ports: The number of I/O ports increases in going from lower to higher
family members.

• Increasing memory size: The size of main memory increases in going from lower to higher
family members.

• Increasing cost: At a given point in time, the cost of a system increases in going from lower to
higher family members.
• DEC PDP-8 In the same year that IBM shipped its first System/360,
another momentous first shipment occurred: PDP-8 from Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC). At a time when the average computer
required an airconditioned room, the PDP-8 was small enough that it
could be placed on top of a lab bench or be built into other equipment.

• The low cost and small size of the PDP-8 enabled another manufacturer
to purchase a PDP-8 and integrate it into a total system for resale. These
other manufacturers came to be known as original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs), and the OEM market became and remains a
major segment of the computer marketplace.
• The PDP-8 was an immediate hit and made DEC’s fortune. This machine
and other members of the PDP-8 family that followed it achieved a
production status formerly reserved for IBM computers, with about
50,000 machines sold over the next dozen years. As DEC’s official history
puts it, the PDP-8 “established the concept of minicomputers, leading the
way to a multibillion dollar industry.” It also established DEC as the number
one minicomputer vendor, and, by the time the PDP-8 had reached the end
of its useful life, DEC was the number two computer manufacturer, behind
IBM.

• In contrast to the central-switched architecture used by IBM on its

700/7000 and 360 systems, later models of the PDP-8 used a structure that
is now virtually universal for microcomputers: the bus structure.
• The PDP-8 bus, called the Omnibus, consists of 96 separate signal paths,
used to carry control, address, and data signals. Because all system
components share a common set of signal paths, their use can be
controlled by the CPU.
Later Generations

• Beyond the third generation there is less general agreement on defining generations of
computers. There have been a number of later generations, based on advances in integrated
circuit technology.

• With the introduction of large-scale integration (LSI), more than 1000 components can be placed
on a single integrated circuit chip. Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) achieved more than 10,000
components per chip, while current ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) chips can contain more
than one billion components

• With the rapid pace of technology, the high rate of introduction of new products, and the
importance of software and communications as well as hardware, the classification by generation
becomes less clear and less meaningful.

• SEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY The first application of integrated circuit technology to computers

was construction of the processor (the control unit and the arithmetic and logic unit) out of
integrated circuit chips. But it was also found that this same technology could be used to
construct memories.
• In the 1950s and 1960s, most computer memory was constructed from tiny rings of
ferromagnetic material, each about a sixteenth of an inch in diameter. These rings
were strung up on grids of fine wires suspended on small screens inside the
computer.

• The simple act of reading a core erased the data stored in it. It was therefore
necessary to install circuits to restore the data as soon as it had been extracted.

• Then, in 1970, Fairchild produced the first relatively capacious semiconductor

memory. This chip, about the size of a single core, could hold 256 bits of memory. It
was nondestructive and much faster than core. It took only 70 billionths of a second
to read a bit. However, the cost per bit was higher than for that of core.
• In 1974, a seminal event occurred: The price per bit of semiconductor memory
dropped below the price per bit of core memory. Following this, there has been a
continuing and rapid decline in memory cost accompanied by a corresponding
increase in physical memory density.

• This has led the way to smaller, faster machines with memory sizes of larger and
more expensive machines from just a few years earlier.

• Since 1970, semiconductor memory has been through 13 generations: 1K, 4K, 16K,
64K, 256K, 1M, 4M, 16M, 64M, 256M, 1G, 4G, and, as of this writing, 16 Gbits on a
single chip (1K = 210, 1M = 220, 1G = 230). Each generation has provided four times the
storage density of the previous generation, accompanied by declining cost per bit
and declining access time.
• MICROPROCESSORS Just as the density of elements on memory
chips has continued to rise, so has the density of elements on
processor chips, so that fewer and fewer chips were needed to
construct a single computer processor.

• A breakthrough was achieved in 1971, when Intel developed its 4004.

The 4004 was the first chip to contain all of the components of a CPU
on a single chip: The microprocessor was born.

• The 4004 can add two 4-bit numbers and can multiply only by
repeated addition. By today’s standards, the 4004 is hopelessly
primitive, but it marked the beginning of a continuing evolution of
microprocessor capability and power.
• This evolution can be seen most easily in the number of bits that the processor deals with at a
time. There is no clear-cut measure of this, but perhaps the best measure is the data bus width:
the number of bits of data that can be brought into or sent out of the processor at a time.

• The next major step in the evolution of the microprocessor was the introduction in 1972 of the
Intel 8008. This was the first 8-bit microprocessor and was almost twice as complex as the
4004

• The introduction of the Intel 8080 in 1974 .

• Whereas the 4004 and the 8008 had been designed for specific applications, the 8080 was
designed to be the CPU of a general-purpose microcomputer.

• About the same time, 16-bit microprocessors began to be developed.

• However, it was not until the end of the 1970s that powerful, general-purpose 16-bit
microprocessors appeared.

• Intel introduced its own 32-bit microprocessor, the 80386, in 1985.

The end!