1. Current Computer Architecture Trends CE 140 A1/A2 29 August 2003

2. 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

3. 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

4. Fabrication Process  Copper versus Aluminum  Microns, Nanometers, etc.

5. 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

6. Copper versus Aluminum  Copper-based processors September 1998: IBM PowerPC 750 introduced (0.18 micron) All high-end processors today use copper interconnects

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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

13. VIA Antaur  Designed for mobile systems (laptops, notebooks, tablets)  Full x86 Compatibility  Low power consumption (11 W at 1 GHz)  Low heat

14. 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

15. Intel Centrino  Set of technologies for mobile computing  Features lower power consumption  Processor: Pentium M  Chipset: Intel 855  Wireless LAN

16. 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

17. 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

18. HP/Compaq Alpha Processor  Top 2 Supercomputer (in Los Alamos National Laboratory) is still made up of AlphaServers

19. 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

20. 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

21. ZFx86

22. Geode

23. STPC Industrial

24. PC-on-a-Chip Advantages  Low cost  Low power consumption

25. PC-on-a-Chip Applications  Embedded systems routers, broadband gateways  Set-top boxes  Thin clients  Information Appliances

26. 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

27. 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