Current Computer Architecture Trends CE 140 A1/A2 29 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 (2- GHz)  14 November 2002: Intel Pentium GHz  13 May 2003: AMD Athlon XP (2.2- Ghz)  23 June 2003: Intel Pentium 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 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