ECESLU Microprocessors lecture

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Lecture 01Introduction to Microprocessors

Microcomputers and MicroprocessorsBy: John Uffenbeck

ECE @Saint Louis University, Baguio City

Prepared by: Engr. Jeffrey Des B. Binwag

ECE @Saint Louis University, Baguio City 2

Microprocessor• Defined as an entire central processing unit of a computer constructed

on a single piece of silicon chip.

• The microprocessor concept was developed in 1969 by INTEL engineers Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor but its implementation was undertaken by INTEL process engineer Federico Faggin in a chip set that became to be known as the INTEL 4000 family.

• The INTEL 4004 version was followed by the 8 bit 8008 in 1972 and an improved version called the 8080 in 1974.

• Similar chips to the 8080 were developed by Motorola (MC 6800) and Zilog (Z-80). These chips had 8-bit data bus widths, and 16-bit address buses.


1979 Issue of Byte Magazine


Evolution of the INTEL Microprocessors


Microcontroller• An entire computer on a chip• A microprocessor with an on-chip memory and

input/output (I/O) capability.• Typically designed into embedded systems with a

“canned program” or a program that never changes.• Modern microcontrollers allow reprogramming in the

field to fit specific customer requirements.• Dataquest, a market research firm in the United States,

reports that microcontrollers outsell microprocessors by as much as 10 to 1.

• Popular applications are in HVAC, Car controls, and Consumer appliances.


Computers• An electronic machine designed to perform general to

specific purpose computations involving logical and arithmetic computations.

• A Stored-Program Computer is a computer that executes programs that must first be saved into the computer’s memory unit.

• PARTS OF A COMPUTER– Central Processing Unit (CPU) or Microprocessor– Memory Unit– Input/ Output Devices or Peripherals


Evolution of Computers

• Vacuum-tube Era (First Generation)• Transistor Era (Second Generation)• Integrated Circuit Era (Third Generation)• Microprocessor Era


Vacuum Tube Era

• Characterized by massive machines made up of thousands of vacuum tubes occupying entire rooms and requiring an air-conditioned environment to operate reliably.

• Based on the vacuum-tube technology, Remington Rand delivered the first Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC I) in 1951.

• In 1952, International Business Machines (IBM) came up with its Model 701 Data Processing System.


Transistor Era• Initiated by the invention of the Bipolar Transistor in 1948

by Bell Laboratory scientists William Shockley and John Bardeen for which they were given the Nobel Physics Prize in 1956.

• TRADIC, the first fully transistorized computer was invented by another Bell Laboratory team in 1954. TRADIC produced less heat than its vacuum tube counterpart making it more reliable and less costly.

• In 1958, IBM announced its first transistorized computer, the 7070/7090 followed by the business oriented 1401 in 1959. These machines were built on circuit boards mounted into rack panels and frames. Thus the term “mainframe.”


Integrated Circuits Era• Spurred by the most significant invention of the 20th

century (the integrated circuit) in 1959, by Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments.

• Integrated circuits made it possible for all circuit components like resistors and transistors to be fabricated on one piece of semiconductor material.

• In 1964, IBM announced one of the most famous computers using IC technology, the 32-bit 360 series. This computer was known to be capable of 375,000 computations per second.


Minicomputers and Microcomputers• In 1965, Edson De Castro of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

spearheaded the completion of the first minicomputer (or a scaled down mainframe) costing $25,000 and called the Programmed Data Processor (PDP-8).

• A microcomputer is a computer whose CPU is on a single microprocessor chip.

• Today, the distinction between a minicomputer, a mainframe, and a microcomputer is not so clear. The term supermini was also coined for minicomputers that rival the performance of mainframes.

• Minicomputers of today are used primarily by small environments in a time-shared environment with 50-100 users. However, with the advent of LAN and WAN environments, even this distinction is fading.


Personal Computers• Personal computers were coined in 1982 by IBM to

market a computer that featured a system board designed around the INTEL 8088 8-bit microprocessor, 16kB memory, and five expansions slots that allowed third-party vendors to supply video, printer, modem disk drives, and RS-232 serial adapter cards.

• The IBM personal computer led to the development of the generic PC , a computer with interchangeable components manufactured by a variety of companies.

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IBM Personal Computer Ad


Supercomputers• A supercomputer is the most powerful computer

available at any given time.

• These machines are used to solve a complex problem to such as the design of a supersonic aircraft, the modeling of global climates, and the prediction of complex financial behavior is securities markets.

• The first supercomputer, the Cray-I is generally acknowledged to have been developed by Seymour Cray in 1976 using high-speed emitter-coupled logic (ECL).

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Cray-1 Supercomputer


Supercomputers• ECLs were the fastest logic circuits at the time.

• Each circuit board on the Cray-I had each circuit board mounted on a copper heat exchanger through which liquid Freon was circulated.

• The Cray-I consumed 128 KW of power, had a processing speed of 130 million floating-point operations per minute (MFLOPS), and was sold at $ 5.1 million each.

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Parallel Processors• Most computers are single-processor,

sequential machines that leveled off in their performance due to the finite length of time required for an electrical signal to propagate through a piece of wire.

• To overcome single-processor limitations, multiple processors were wired together via common bus, with each processor given a problem to solve. This was called Parallel processing.

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Parallel Processors• Parallel processing increased computer performance

levels from single-processors operating at MFLOPS levels to tens of GFLOPS and even at TFLOPS levels today.

• Early parallel processor architecture used hypercubes made up of an arrangement of processors in the form of n-dimensional cubes each connected by a high-speed data channel.

• More recently, supercomputer designers have opted for a two-dimensional rectangular mesh architecture with multiple processors at each connecting node.

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Parallel Processor Hypercube


RISC and CISC Processors• Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISCs) are

computers with a small number of instruction sets (less than 128) as compared to Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISCs).

• CISCs are characterized by:– Large number of variable length instructions– Multiple addressing modes– Small number of internal processor registers– Instructions require multiple clock cycles for

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ECE @Saint Louis University, Baguio City 21 (END)

DSP• Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) are microprocessors

used to perform complex mathematical computations on converted analog data at real time speeds.

• DSPs are different from conventional microprocessors in the following aspects:– Use Harvard Architecture– Use multipliers and adders built into the processor

optimized to perform a calculation in a single cycle– Use arithmetic pipelining– Use DO loops to speed up repetitive operations– Provided with multiple I/O ports for communication with

other processors


Thank You

ECESLU Microprocessors lecture

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