Lecture 1

Outline

• History of Computers
• Generation of Computers
• Designing for performance

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Overview
Why study computer organization and
architecture?
– Design better programs, including system software such as
compilers, operating systems, and device drivers.
– Optimize program behavior.
– Evaluate (benchmark) computer system performance.
– Understand time, space, and price tradeoffs.

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Computer Components

• At the most basic level, a computer is a

device consisting of three pieces:

– A processor to interpret and execute programs

– A memory to store both data and programs
– A mechanism for transferring data to and from the
outside world.

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An Example System

Consider this advertisement:

What does it all mean??

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Functional View

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Operations: Data movement

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Operations: Storage

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Operation: Processing from/to storage

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Operation: Processing from storage to I/O

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 Structure - Top Level

Peripherals Computer

Central Main
Processing Memory
Unit

Computer
Systems
Interconnection

Input
Output
Communication
lines

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 Structure - The CPU

CPU

Computer Arithmetic
Registers and
I/O Login Unit
System CPU
Bus
Internal CPU
Memory Interconnection

Control
Unit

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 Structure - The Control Unit

Control Unit

CPU
Sequencing
ALU Login
Control
Internal
Unit
Bus
Control Unit
Registers Registers and
Decoders

Control
Memory

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 First Generation: Vacuum Tube

• Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer

(ENIAC):
– Eckert and Mauchly
– University of Pennsylvania
– Cost $487,000
– Started 1943
– Finished 1946
– Used until 1955
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 Von Neumann/Turing
• Stored Program concept
• Main memory storing programs and data
• ALU operating on binary data
• Control unit interpreting instructions from memory and executing
• Input and output equipment operated by control unit
• Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies
• Completed 1952

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Structure of von Neumann machine

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Control Unit and ALU Register

• Memory Buffer Register (MBR)

• Memory Address Register (MAR)
• Instruction Register (IR)

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Control Unit and ALU Register

• Instruction Buffer Register (IBR)

• Program Counter (PC)
• Accumulator (AC) and multiplier quotient
(MQ)

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Structure of IAS – detail

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 Commercial Computers
• 1947 - Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation – Manufactured the first
commercial computer.
• UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) – first successful machine,
which was commission by the US Bureau of Census for 1950 calculations.
• Became part of Sperry-Rand
Corporation which went on to
build a series of successor
machines.
• Late 1950s - UNIVAC II
– Faster
– More memory

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 IBM
• Punched-card processing equipment
• 1953 - the 701
– IBM’s first stored program computer
– Scientific calculations
• 1955 - the 702
– Business applications
• Lead to 700/7000 series

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Second Generation: Transistors
• Replaced vacuum tubes
• Smaller
• Cheaper
• Less heat dissipation
• Solid State device
• Made from Silicon (Sand)
• Invented 1947 at Bell Labs
• William Shockley et al.

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 Transistor based Computers
• Second generation machines
• NCR & RCA produced small transistor
machines.
• IBM 7000 series

• Second generation saw the introduction of more complex

arithmetic and logic units and control units and the use of high-
level programming languages.
• DEC – 1957
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Third Generation: Integrated Circuit

• Microelectronics
– Literally - “small electronics”
– A computer is made up of gates, memory cells and
interconnections
– These can be manufactured on a semiconductor
– e.g. silicon wafer

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Digital Computer

• Basic elements of a digital computer:

– Only two fundamental types of components are required
– Gate is a device that implements a simple Boolean or
logical function such as:
– IF A AND B ARE TRUE THEN C IS TRUE (AND gate)

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Digital Computer

• Basic elements of a digital computer:

– Data storage
– Data processing
– Data movement
– Control

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 Later Generations

• Beyond the third generation.

• Classification by generation becomes less clear and
less meaningful because of many elements.

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Moore’s Law
• Increased density of components on chip
• Gordon Moore – co-founder of Intel
• Number of transistors on a chip will double every year
• Since 1970’s development has slowed a little
• Cost of a chip has remained almost unchanged
• Higher packing density means shorter electrical paths, giving higher performance
• Smaller size gives increased flexibility
• Reduced power and cooling requirements
• Fewer interconnections increases reliability

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Growth in CPU Transistor Count

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Semiconductor Memory
• 1970
• Fairchild
• Size of a single core
– i.e. 1 bit of magnetic core storage
• Holds 256 bits
• Non-destructive read
• Much faster than core
• Capacity approximately doubles each year

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 Intel

• 1971 - 4004

• Followed in 1972 by 8008

• 1974 – 8080

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 Designing for Performance

• The continuing technological revolution has

enabled the development of applications of
astounding complexity and power. For
example, desktop applications that require
great power microprocessor based system

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Performance Balance

• Processor speed increased

• Memory capacity increased
• Memory speed lags behind processor speed

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Logic and Memory Performance Gap

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I/O Devices

• Peripherals with intensive I/O demands

• Large data throughput demands
• Processors can handle this
• Problem moving data

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Key is Balance

• Processor components
• Main memory
• I/O devices
• Interconnection structures

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Improvements in Chip
Organization and Architecture

• Increase hardware speed of processor

• Increase size and speed of caches
• Change processor organization and architecture

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Increased Cache Capacity

• Typically two or three levels of cache between

processor and main memory
• Chip density increased
• Pentium chip devoted about 10% of chip area to cache
• Pentium 4 devotes about 50%

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More Complex Execution Logic

• Enable parallel execution of instructions

• Pipeline works like assembly line
• Superscalar allows multiple pipelines within
single processor

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Diminishing Returns

• Internal organization of processors complex

• Benefits from cache are reaching limit
• Increasing clock rate runs into power
dissipation problem

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New Approach – Multiple Cores

• Multiple processors on single chip

• Increase in performance proportional to square root
of increase in complexity
• If multiple processors, doubling number of
processors almost doubles performance
• With two processors, larger caches are justified
• Example: IBM POWER4
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POWER4 Chip Organization

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Pentium Evolution (1)

• 8080
– first general purpose microprocessor
– 8 bit data path
– Used in first personal computer – Altair
• 8086
– much more powerful
– 16 bit
– instruction cache, prefetch few instructions
– 8088 (8 bit external bus) used in first IBM PC
• 80286
– 16 Mbyte memory addressable
– up from 1Mb
• 80386
– 32 bit
– Support for multitasking

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Pentium Evolution (2)

• 80486
– sophisticated powerful cache and instruction pipelining
– built in maths co-processor
• Pentium
– Superscalar
– Multiple instructions executed in parallel
• Pentium Pro
– Increased superscalar organization
– Aggressive register renaming
– branch prediction
– data flow analysis
– speculative execution

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Pentium Evolution (3)

• Pentium II
– MMX technology
– graphics, video & audio processing
• Pentium III
– Additional floating point instructions for 3D graphics
• Pentium 4
– Further floating point and multimedia enhancements
• Itanium
– 64 bit
• Itanium 2
– Hardware enhancements to increase speed
• Itanium 9300, 9500 and 9700
– Greater performance and memory capacity
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 PowerPC

• 1975, 801 minicomputer project (IBM) RISC

• Berkeley RISC I processor
• 1986, IBM commercial RISC workstation product, RT PC.
– Not commercial success
– Many rivals with comparable or better performance
• 1990, IBM RISC System/6000
– RISC-like superscalar machine
– POWER architecture

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PowerPC

• IBM alliance with Motorola (68000

microprocessors), and Apple, (used 68000 in
Macintosh)
• Result is PowerPC architecture
– Derived from the POWER architecture
– Superscalar RISC
– Apple Macintosh
– Embedded chip applications

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 PowerPC Family

• 740/750:
– Also known as G3
– Two levels of cache on chip
• G4:
– Increases parallelism and internal speed
• G5:
– Improvements in parallelism and internal speed
– 64-bit organization

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