Chapter 1

An Overview

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 Contents
— Basic Computer Components
— History of Computers
— Performance Assessment

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 Basic Computer Components

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 Basic Computer Components
— Central Processing Unit (CPU): controls the operation of
the computer and performs its data processing functions
§ Control unit: controls the operation of the CPU and hence the
computer
§ Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) performs the math and logic
calculations.
§ Registers: provide storage internal to the CPU.
§ CPU interconnection: provides communication among the control
unit, ALU and registers
— Main memory: stores data
— I/O: transfers data between the computer and its external
environment
— System interconnection: provides communication among
CPU, main memory and I/O
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 Contents
— Basic Computer Components
— History of Computers
— Performance Assessment

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 The first generation: vacuum tubes
— ENIAC (Electronic
Numerical Integrator And
Computer)
— Trajectory tables for
weapons
— Started 1943 and finished
1946
— Decimal (not binary)
— 18000 vacuum tubes
— Programmed manually by
switches
— 30 tons, 1500 square feet
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— 140 kW, 5000 additions/sec
 Von Neumann Architecture
— Stored-program concept
— IAS computer (1946 – 1952)
§ Main memory stores programs and data
§ ALU operates on binary data
§ Control unit interprets instructions from memory
§ Input and output equipment operated by control unit

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 The second generation: transistors
— Invented 1947 at Bell Labs
— Smaller, cheaper, less heat dissipation
— Solid state device, made from silicon
— A single, self-contained transistor called a discrete
component
— Electronic equipment composed largely of discrete
components
— More complex arithmetic and logic units and control
units
— High-level programming language
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 The third generation: integrated circuits
— 1958 - invention of integrated circuit, era of
microelectronic
— Fabricate an entire circuit in a tiny piece of silicon
rather than assemble discrete components make from
separate piece of silicon

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 Moore’s Law
— By Gordon Moore – co-founder of Intel in 1965
— Number of transistors on a chip doubles every year
— Since 1970’s : Number of transistors on a chip doubles 18
months (2 years)
— Cost of a chip has remained almost unchanged
— Higher packing density means shorter electrical paths, giving
higher performance
— Smaller computers, more convenient to place in various
environments
— Reduced power and cooling requirements
— Fewer interconnections increase reliability
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 Moore’s Law

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 Computer generations

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 Semiconductor memory
— Application of integrated circuit to construct memories
— First created in 1970 at Fairchild corporation
§ Size of a single core (i.e. 1 bit magnetic core storage) but hold 256
bits of memory
§ Non-destructive read
§ Much faster than core (70 billionths of a second to read a bit)
§ Higher cost per bit
— Capacity approximately doubles every year
— Since 1970, 1K, 4K, 16K, 64K, 256K, 1M, 4M, 16M,
64M, 256M, 1G, 4G, and, as of this writing, 16 Gbits on a
single chip
— Reduced cost per bit and access time
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 Intel Microprocessors

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 Intel Microprocessors

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 Intel Microprocessors

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 Intel Microprocessors

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 Contents
— Basic Computer Components
— History of Computers
— Performance Assessment

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 Performance Assessment
— Clock speed
§ Operations performed by a processor governed by a system clock
§ Clock signals generated by a quartz crystal
§ Clock rate must be appropriate for the physical layout of the
processor
— Instruction execution rate:
§ MIPS (Million of instructions per second)

where 𝐼! is the instruction count, T is the processor time to execute a

given program, CPI is the average cycles per instruction, f is the
clock frequency
§ MFLOPS (Million of floating-point operations per second)

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 Performance Assessment
— Example: Consider the execution of a program that results in
the execution of 2 million instructions on a 400-MHz processor.
The program consists of four major types of instructions as
follows:

Calculate the MIPS rate?

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—
 Questions
— What are main components of a computer?
— What are main components of a CPU?
— What is Stored program concept?
— List 6 generations of computer evolution
— Explain Moore’s Law

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 Exercises
— 2.10, 2.11, 2.12, 2.16 (Chapter 2 Textbook)

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 Exercises

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 Exercises

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 Exercises

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 Exercises

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