Processor
Today, computers are
a part of our lifestyle, but the first computer that was used was developed at
the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1946.It had an ENIAC (Electronic
Numerical Integrator And computer )processor. The reprogramming feature that is
so extensively used today, was introduced by Alan Turing and John von Neumann
with their teams. The von Neumann architecture is the basis of modern
computers.
Computing technology
has greatly advanced since 1951 by transforming from vacuum tube machines of 30
tons to microprocessors the size of a penny. They are cost effective than ever.
Now found in every aspect of modern life, computer processors appear in
everything from personal computers to video game consoles to coffee machines.
The evolution of the
computer processor began with the knowing of the principles of electricity.
Although there were thoughts on how this technology could be implemented for
much of the 1900s, it was not until the 1960s and early 1970s that scientists
were capable to put those ideas into activity.
Features:
First generation:
1.They used valves or vacuum
tubes as their main electronic component.
2.They were large in size,
slow in processing and had less storage capacity.
Example: ENIAC, UNIVAC, IBM
650 etc
Second generation:
1. Transistors were
used instead of Vacuum Tube.
2. Processing speed is
faster than First Generation Computers (Micro Second)
3. Smaller in Size (51
square feet).
Example: IBM 1400 and 7000
Series, Control Data 3600 etc.
Third generation:
1.
They used Integrated Circuit
(IC) chips in place of the transistors.
2. The
size was greatly reduced, the speed of processing was high, they were
more accurate and reliable.
3. Large Scale
Integration (LSI) and Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) were also developed.
Example: IBM
360, IBM 370 etc.
Fourth generation:
1. They
used Microprocessor (VLSI) as their main switching element.
2. They have very high
speed of processing; they are 100% accurate, reliable, diligent and
versatile.
Example: IBM PC,
Apple-Macintosh etc.
Defference between first, second,third,fourth and Future
generation:
1.First generation computers used vaccum tubes as memory
device.
2.Second generation computers used transistor.
3.Third generation computers used integrated circuits.
4.Fourth generation computers used LSI and VLSI
technologies.
5.Future generation computers will be using Ultra Large
Scale Integration(ULSI) technology.
Next difference:
1.The operating speed was measured in milliseconds.
2.The operating speed was measured in microseconds.
3.These generation the operating speed was measured in nano
seconds.
4.These generation the operating speed is measured in
beyond picoseconds and MIPS(Million of instruction per seconds) and
Multiprocessing and multiprogramming OS are used.
5.The speed will be extremely high in fifth generation
computer.
Next difference:
1.They were extremely large and occupied a very large
space.
2.They were smaller,faster and cheaper than first
generation of computer.
3.They were smaller than second generation of
computer,efficient and reliable.
4.4GL are also used.
5.The goal of fifth generation computers is develop
machines that will be able to think and take decisions and it can perform large
number of parallel processing.
The first processors
were large machines that were rather slow by today's standards, though they
represented a new move in computational power, which previously had to be done
manually. England's Colossus Mark 1 and Mark 2, and
America's ENIAC -- known as the first fully-functional computer.
UNIVAC, designed by the principle designers of the ENIAC,
was the first computer made for commercial usefulness. Its processor was
capable of 19,000 operations per second w/2.25 Mhz clock, and sold for millions
of dollars. Another early computer was the IBM 650, which shipped first in
1954.
Second Generation processor:
Transistors, invented in 1947, began replacing vacuum tubes
as early as 1955. Smaller in size, they were known as
"minicomputers," but still needed several components and a dedicated
room. One example of such computers was the IBM 1401. Another feature of this
era was the PDP-1, released in 1946 with a processor comparable to 2 kilohertz
-- 100,000 operations per second.
Integrated circuits place many individual units of a
processor on a single chip, known as "microchips" in practice. The
quantity of transistors per chip increased rapidly from tens in the early '60s
to ten-thousands in the mid '70s. The final step in the development process,
starting in the 1980s and continuing through the present, was "very
large-scale integration." The development started with hundreds of
thousands of transistors in the early 1980s, and proceeds beyond several
billion transistors at the end of the first decade in the 21st century.
The microprocessor,
or CPU,does the calculations necessary for running computer software. As an
example of this, the newest available CPUs are over 1,000 times faster than
their earliest counterparts.
As microprocessors
grown at the end of the 20th century, processor design has continued to evolve.
Multiple core processors have two or more processing units working in parallel
on a single chip. In addition, cell phones and other small devices have
pioneered the "microcontroller:" a chip that contains a tiny
processing unit as well as a small quantity of memory and combined I/O
interfaces. These microcontrollers can be the size of a fingernail or even
smaller.
The CPU's basic building block is the transistor--an
electrical switch capable of representing 0s and 1s. The more transistors a
processor has, the more data it can handle. Consider that the 4004 had 2,300
transistors, each 10,000 nanometers wide, while the fastest desktop processor
as , Intel's Core i7 980X, has 1.17 billion transistors, each 32 nanometers
wide.
Despite its being a calculator processor, Intel's 4004 is
widely regarded as the first microprocessor because it could be used to run
more than one application. Introduced in 1971, the 4004 had a clock speed of
0.74 MHz. It was a 4-bit chip and had 2,300 transistors.By the end of the
1970s, a new generation of faster processors arrived, the fastest of which was
Intel's 8086, at 5 MHz.
Intel released the 8088 chip in 1979. The 8088 was a 16-bit
processor and contained 29,000 transistors. This was the chip that was chosen
for the first IBM PC.
The Intel Pentium was released in 1993 as a 32-bit
processor with 3.21 million transistors. Two years later Intel's competitor,
AMD, released their AM5x86 chip which performed comparably to Pentium
processors, but was capable to be installed on older 486 boards.
The Intel Pentium M was released in 2003 and was designed
specifically with mobile devices in mind.
There are many different processors on the market. There
are some that have Intel Processors, some that have AMD Processors and amongst
those two there are a lot of variations. The speed which is called the clock
speed and that will commonly right now be between 2.0 and 3.0 gigahertz maybe a
little bit higher on some of newer end processors. Now that that number tells
maybe 3.0 GHZ, it tells how fast that processor struggles through instruction,
how fast it works. So higher that number the improve because that means process
will be faster. Now between the two also have on Intel have dual core
processors and that basically two processors in one Now what that will allow it
to do is to execute basically two distinct programs at a time. Those are
typically a little more costly, they even go up to quad core processors now on
some best ops which means they can execute four different instructions at a
time which basically will speed the total use of the computer. Now also to see
32 bit and 64 bit processes. Now the difference between these two is the size
of the numbers that they are able to work on and that might not sound like a
big deal but it actually is. The operating system has to be 64 bit compatible.
If some programs that were written for 32 bit or written for 64 bit might not
work on the other one.
Multi-core CPUs integrated multiple processors on one chip
to gain the amount of operations they can perform at the same time. The first
PC processor to use this technology was Intel's Pentium 840. Multi-core
processors range from two to six cores, while at least one server processor,
made by Tilera, contains 100 cores.
