PROF. DANIEL ERNSTFEBRUARY 28 T H , 2011
COMPUTER HARDWARE
CS 146The Big Picture in Computer Science
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What would you say is the greatest invention of the 20th century?
(ABC News poll, 1999)
Top responses % Computers 30Automobile 12Electricity 9Television 9Telephone/Telecommunications 7Airplane 4Medicines/Vaccinations 4
“The transistor; without it, the XBOX would probably be the size of a city.”
- nate66, some xbox forum
???
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Introduction of Microelectronics
Miniaturization of immense proportions Transistor: This is an abbreviated combination of
the words "transconductance" or "transfer", and "varistor". The device logically belongs in the varistor family, and has the transconductance or transfer impedance of a device having gain, so that this combination is descriptive.— Bell Telephone Laboratories — Technical Memorandum (May 28, 1948)
Integrated Circuit: Miniaturized electronic circuit manufactured in a thin layer of semiconductor material.
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Moore’s Law
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Moore’s Law
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The Power of Miniaturization
EDSAC 1 (1949)~ 500 OPs
Pentium 4 (2002)~ 12 GFLOPs
24,000,000 times faster
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A picture is worth 1000 words…
(or a billion transistors)
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Managing Complexity with Abstraction
Designers deal with the extreme complexity of microprocessors by using abstraction. Focus only on 1-2 levels of abstraction at a time Similar to OOD
Don’t need to know how the module works, just that it does work. And the interface
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Levels of Abstraction in a Computer System
Apps
O/S
Arch
mArch
Logic
Digital
Analog
Devices
Physics
software
hardware
Applications – Generic Software
Operating System – Controlling Software
Architecture – HW/SW Interface
marchitecture – High-level organization
Digital Logic – Building-block Modules
Digital Circuits – Continuous Discrete
Analog Circuits – Fun with Electricity
Devices – Transistors, Capacitors, etc.
Physical Properties – Electrons, Ions, etc.
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