Lecture 01
Fundamental of
Microcomputers
Issues
Definitions
A microcomputer system
Evolution of the Microprocessor
How is a microprocessor fabricated?
Comparison b/n different types of Micro-
processors based on architecture, speed, power,
cost...
Definitions
Microprocessor
- a controlling unit of a micro-computer wrapped
inside a small chip.
- It performs Arithmetic Logical Unit (ALU)
operations and communicates with the other devices
connected with it.
- Control only, external memory and I/O required
Eg. 8086, M68000, MIPS, SPARC, Pen/um…
Microcontroller
- A microcontroller is a chip optimized to control
electronic devices.
- It is stored in a single integrated circuit which is
dedicated to performing a particular task and
execute one specific application.
E.g Arduino, AVR, PIC, 8051, MSP…
Definitions
Microcomputer
- a complete computer system built using a
microprocessor and a few other components for the
memory and I/0.
e.g. PC, Mac, VAX, PDP, SunSparc
What is a Micro computer 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 Micro-computer system
Memory
Is 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 storage capacity
magnetic/optical discs (hard disk drives) or solid
state devices (EEPROM, flash…)
Input/output (I/O) devices
devices we use to transfer data to/from the micro
processor. an interface controller is required b/n the
microprocessor and the I/O device:Keyboard, mouse,
display …
Evolution of the Microprocessors
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 microprocessor
• 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 -‐-‐> Microsoj corp.
Evolution of the microprocessors
Intel 8086/8088
1978, 16 bit: 8088, 1979, 8 ‐- bit external bus
IBM PC; 1981
29,000 Transistors.
Intel 80286
1982, 16-bit architecture
24‐bit addressing, memory protection and virtual memory
16 MB of physical Memory and 1 GB of virtual memory
130,000 Trs. onto a single chip
IBM PC/AT in 1984, IBM PS/2 Model 50 and 60
History of Intel’s microprocessors
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 microprocessors
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
History of Intel’s microprocessors
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(Complementary metal–oxide–
semiconductor) process.
- The CMOS technology has made it possible to integrate
several useful HWs with the microprocessor core such
as: MMU, PMU, Cache, GPU, …
Silicon oxide as
insulator
Electrical conductive
polysilicon(gate terminal)
A silicon Wafer
Ready Microchips
A silicon Wafer
Fabrication
The MOS transistor MOS transistor types & symbols
Fabrication…cntd
Compare/contrast
- We can classify micro processors based on
o Architecture
o Application type
o Performance (in terms of speed, power consumption...)
- In modern microprocessors, the best features from the
different types is taken to achieve the maximum
performance.
- Based on Architecture or instruction set, the
major categories are RISC and CISC.
Compare/contrast
- An instruction set is the entire collection of instructions
for a given processor, and
- Architecture implies a particular way of building the
system that makes the processor.
Compare/contrast…RISC Vs CISC
CISC (complex Instruction Set Computer)
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
CISC, architecture.
RISC Vs CISC…
RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer)
RISC-based machines execute one instruction per clock cycle.
• 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
pipelining
- Instruction pipelining is a technique for implementing
instruction level parallelism within a single processor.
- Pipelining attempts to keep every part of the processor busy
with some instruction by dividing incoming instructions into a
series of sequential steps performed by different processor
units with different parts of instructions processed in parallel.
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 micro processor also depends on the No.
of cores in the chip and intelligent HW/SW like, parallelism,
pipelining, on-‐chip caches, PMU and such
