What this course is about...

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What this course is about...
Speeeeeeeeeeeed!
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Our domain

• We are interested primarily with CPU-related
  functions
• A single chip, often with several CPUs on it

• Also, were interested in memory systems
• The important parts we care about are...
• Cache (on-chip, or close to the CPU)
• Virtual memory (includes the disk drive)

Intel Core 2 Extreme Mobile X7900
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A Motherboard
MSI P6N SLI-FI ATX Intel Motherboard
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A bit of history
Size Power Perf. Memory Price PerformanceYe
ar Name (ft3) (watts) (adds/sec) (1996
) /Price
1951 Univac 1 1000 124,500 1,900 48
KB 4,996,749 1
1964 IBM 60 10,000 500,000 64 KB
4,140,257 318 S360/50
1965 PDP-8 8 500 330,000 4 KB 66,071 13,135
1976 Cray-1 58 60,000 166,000,000 32
MB 8,459,712 50,604
1981 IBM PC 1 150 240,000 256 KB 4,081 154,673
1996 Pentium 0.5 500 400,000,000 16
MB 4,400 239,000,000 Pro 200
2003 Pentium 0.5 250 6,000,000,000 512
MB 1,000 15 x 109 4/3000
2009 Core 2 0.5 400 18,000,000,000 8 GB
500 100 x 109 Duo E6850
2011 i7-870 0.5 400 90,000,000,000 16 GB
500 473 x 109
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Whodunit?

• J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly (U. Penn)
• ENIAC during WWII. Computed artillery tables,
  programmed by re-cabling.

• John von Neumann
• Joined ENIAC project in 1944
• Credited with developing the concept of a
  stored-program computer

• Maurice Wilkes (Cambridge)
• Developed EDSAC in 1946, first stored-program
  computer

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Generations...
Generation Dates Primary Technology Memory
Technology
1 50s Vacuum tubes Mercury Tubes, CRTs
2 60-68 Transistors Core memory,Drums
3 69-77 I.C. DRAM, Tapes
4 78- LSI, VLSI DRAM, Disks, CDs, Flash
5 ? ? ?
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Things change...

• Will everything you learn in this course be
  obsolete next year?

• NO! (at least not everything)
• Basic concepts stay the same
• CPU/Memory interface
• Instruction execution
• Instruction sets
• Memory hierarchy
• Even the details dont change too fast
• Caches, Virtual memory, Pipelines all look
  similar to the way theyve always looked
• The technology changes, the concepts remain

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What You Will Learn in this Course

• All about the innards of of a computer

• Processor Architecture
• Instruction Set (Assembly language)
• Datapaths
• Arithmetic
• Control
• Pipelining
• Memory systems
• Cache memories
• Virtual memory