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15 June 2008

IT_Chapter_5B

A Look Inside The Processor

Architecture

Determines

Location of CPU parts

Bit size

Number of registers

Pipelines

Main difference between CPUs

Microcomputer Processors

Intel

Leading manufacturer of processors

Intel 4004 was worlds first microprocessor

IBM PC powered by Intel 8086

Current processors

Centrino

Itanium

Pentium IV

Xeon

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Main competitor to Intel

Originally produced budget products

Current products outperform Intel

Current processors

Sempron

Athlon FX 64

Athlon XP

Freescale

A subsidiary of Motorola

Co-developed the Apple G4 PowerPC

Currently focuses on the Linux market

IBM

Historically manufactured mainframes

Partnered with Apple to develop G5

First consumer 64 bit chip

Comparing Processors

Speed of processor

Size of cache

Number of registers

Bit size

Speed of Front side bus

Advanced Processor Topics

RISC processors

Reduced Instruction Set Computing

Smaller instruction sets

May process data faster

PowerPC and G5

Parallel Processing

Multiple processors in a system

Symmetric Multiple Processing

Number of processors is a power of 2

Massively Parallel Processing

Thousands of processors

Mainframes and super computers

Extending The Processors Power

Standard computer ports

Keyboard and mouse ports

USB ports

Parallel

Network

Modem

Audio

Serial

Video

Serial and parallel ports

Connect to printers or modems

Parallel ports move bits simultaneously

Made of 8 – 32 wires

Internal busses are parallel

Serial ports move one bit

Lower data flow than parallel

Requires control wires

UART converts from serial to parallel

Extending The Processors Power

SCSI

Small Computer System Interface

Supports dozens of devices

External devices daisy chain

Fast hard drives and CD-ROMs

USB

Universal Serial Bus

Most popular external bus

Supports up to 127 devices

Hot swappable

FireWire

IEEE 1384

Cameras and video equipment

Hot swappable

Port is very expensive

Expansion slots and boards

Allows users to configure the machine

Slots allow the addition of new devices

Devices are stored on cards

Computer must be off before inserting

PC Cards

Expansion bus for laptops

PCMCIA

Hot swappable

Small card size

Three types, I, II and III

Type II is most common

Plug and play

New hardware detected automatically

Prompts to install drivers

Non-technical users can install devices

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