Current Computer Architecture Trends

CE 140 A1/A229 August 2003

The GigaHertz Race 6 March 2000: AMD Athlon 1-GHz 8 March 2000: Intel Pentium 3 1-GHz 27 August 2001: Intel Pentium 4 2-Ghz 21 August 2002: AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2-

GHz) 14 November 2002: Intel Pentium 4 3.06-

GHz 13 May 2003: AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2-

Ghz) 23 June 2003: Intel Pentium 4 3.2-Ghz

The GigaHertz Race

So, what’s next? 4.77 GHz race? 10 GHz Race? Intel expects to have a 5-Ghz chip by end

of 2003 Clearly, Intel has won the GHz race. BUT… GHz alone is not a complete

measure of performance

Fabrication Process

Copper versus Aluminum Microns, Nanometers, etc.

Copper versus Aluminum

Copper is a better conductor of electricity than aluminum

Interconnects (wiring) – connect transistors on the chip to each other

Copper allows for thinner wiring allows chip to hold more components

Using copper entails a more complex manufacturing process

Copper versus Aluminum

Copper-based processors September 1998: IBM PowerPC 750

introduced (0.18 micron) All high-end processors today use copper

interconnects

Processor Fabrication

1 micron = 1 x 10-6 meter

Microns measure distance between components on the processor

Aluminum-based chips: 0.25 microns Copper-based chips: 0.13 microns

Fabrication Technology

Volume processor available today are manufactured using 0.13 micron process

Upcoming 0.09 microns or 90 nanometers

Intel’s Prescott AMD’s Athlon64

AMD/IBM collaborating on 65nm and 45nm process technology

Front Side Bus

Connects CPU to memory Athlon XP – up to 400 MHz FSB Pentium 4 – up to 800 MHz FSB PowerPC G5 – up to 1 GHz FSB

Chipsets

Set of chips that are responsible for controlling I/O, buses, peripherals, etc.

Chipset manufacturers: Intel, AMD, SiS, Ali, Nvidia

Determines supported bus speeds, RAM types, etc.

Overclocking System Clock – Main source of clock signal (typical

100MHz, 133MHz, etc.) Actual system bus speed without any enhancements

CPU clock – multiple of system clock CPU multiplier normally fixed Example 1 GHz CPU clock is 8X of 133 MHz system

Clock Front Side Bus effective speed

Depending on enhancement, also a multiple of system clock

Double pumped = 2 X system clock Quad pumped = 4 X system clock

Overclocking Methods

Increase system bus frequency Change CPU multiplier *IF POSSIBLE* Change bus frequency and CPU

multiplier *IF POSSIBLE* Overclocking issues

RAM/Peripherals may not be able to run at faster speeds

Heat and Cooling

VIA Antaur

Designed for mobile systems (laptops, notebooks, tablets)

Full x86 Compatibility Low power consumption (11 W at 1

GHz) Low heat

Transmeta Crusoe

Low-power, low-heat processor optimized for mobile computing (but is now also used in servers)

Has a VLIW core and employs Code Morphing to translate x86 instructions into VLIW code

Upcoming: Transmeta Efficeon Integrated DDR400, AGP4X, Northbridge

Intel Centrino

Set of technologies for mobile computing

Features lower power consumption Processor: Pentium M Chipset: Intel 855 Wireless LAN

IBM PowerPC G5 Used in the latest Apple PowerMac G5 Up to 2GHz 64-bit Up to 1 GHz FSB Up to 8 GBps total bandwidth Can run 32-bit and 64-bit software L1: 32K Data / 64K Instruction L2: 512K

HP/Compaq Alpha Processor The Alpha Processor was once the fast

processor – first to demonstrate 1 GHz processor in June 1999

Now under HP (which bought Compaq that bought Digital Equipment Corporation – original maker of Alpha)

Development may be pursued by Samsung which has access to all Alpha IP

HP has announced support for AlphaServers for a few more years with the EV79 processor

HP/Compaq Alpha Processor

Top 2 Supercomputer (in Los Alamos National Laboratory) is still made up of AlphaServers

Sun UltraSPARC III

Based on the SPARC RISC processor architecture

64-bit processor Designed for workstations and servers 900 MHz to 1.2 GHz Up to 8MB L2 Cache (external) Runs Unix-based systems

PC-on-a-Chip Integrates processor, BIOS, chipset,

I/O functions in one chip Only one chip will be required to build

a computer Examples

ZFx86 from ZF Micro Devices National Semiconductor’s Geode (soon to

be under AMD) STPC Industrial from STMicroelectronics

ZFx86

Geode

STPC Industrial

PC-on-a-Chip Advantages

Low cost Low power consumption

PC-on-a-Chip Applications

Embedded systems routers, broadband gateways

Set-top boxes Thin clients Information Appliances

Instruction Set

Intel and AMD has kept the x86 instruction set alive

But extensions were added to support multimedia applications

Intel: MMX, SSE, SSE2 AMD: 3DNow, Enhanced 3DNow

What’s Next 64-bit processors

Itanium 2 from Intel Opteron from AMD Initially for the server market although

the Opteron has found its way to the high-end desktop platform

64-bit for the desktop AMD’s Athlon64 Intel’s Prescott