The Evolution of the Central Processing Unit - Literature review Example

? The Evolution of the Central Processing Unit The central processing unit has seen its fair share of evolution, which can be traced back to the time when the entire processing unit was based off physical wiring that had to be changed every time the task description changed. This is such that every task had its own physical wiring configuration for the task to be executed. The earliest CPUs were built as part of larger system of a computer so that it was custom made for it particular tasks and this was especially the case for computers that were created before the 1960s, because it is after this time that CPUs were created a bit differently as shall be seen later. In addition, the largest challenge with this type of central processing unit in the fact that it had to be programmed, in which case programming meant rewiring its circuitry to run designated tasks due to the lack of dynamism in automation. As such, all manners of programming done to the CPU were done manually through wiring and rewiring to suit the computational demands of each task. This took plenty of time to do thus was very challenging as was the case of the Harvard Mark 1 and EDVAC, which were amongst the earliest computers that used the custom made processors to execute programs. This can effectively be termed as the first wave of the first generation of processors as it marked a new wave in computing. Therefore, this is where the processors ran at a low clock rate of roughly 100 kHz to 4mhz. the low speeds of the clock rate were largely due to the speed of switching devices and circuitry, which were largely relays and vacuum tubes. Next in line was the transistor and integrated circuit CPUs, which was an upgrade to smaller electronic devices that had a higher level of reliability due to the use of transistors. It is these transistors that saw the CPUs of the 1950s and 1960s shrink in size due to the exclusion of electric relays and vacuum tubes, and instead the entire CPU was mounted on one or several printed circuit boards and each had individual components. These usually consisted of tens to a few hundred transistors and for a single to be built all these had to be soldered onto the earlier mentioned printed circuit boards. This is because of the numerous transistors required, there was need to have multiple boards and these needed to be interconnected in a chassis to create a complete central processing unit. In this case, each board consisting of soldered in transistors was known as a die or a chip, and it is only unspecialized digital circuits that were miniaturized into integrated circuits. Miniaturization into transistor integrated circuits were a large step since these did not need rewiring to conduct different due to their non-specialized nature. This phase of the evolution of central processing units was characterized by low power input due to advancement in microelectronic technology and the number of individual transistors required in making a single CPU reduced significantly. Furthermore, in the 1960s, IBM introduced a new standard of architecture and this saw the introduction of CPUs that could run similar tasks and programs at different speeds and performance levels. This marked the first processor that could show a variation in performance and speed as most processors and computers were incompatible with one another to extent that even those that were created by the same manufacturer were completely incompatible. IBM’s system/360 was the name of this architecture and it made use of micro programs that are also known as micro-code and these are still used inn modern CPUs (DejaVu Design, n.d). The reliability of these transistor-based central processing units was based on the lower switching times, which enhanced their speeds as compared to the time taken I the case of electric relays and tubes. The clock speed of these transistor based CPUs marked a new record in that they were double and triple in the dozens of first generation of specialized CPUs. It is after different companies created the creation of the first transistor central processing unit that the first considerable step was made towards the creation of a single chip processor or rather the micro-processor. This was made from silicone and it was made by Intel in 1971 by the name Intel 4004 making it the world’s first single chip processor to ever be invented and produced (Asgar, 2012). As such, the Intel 4004 incorporated all the parts of CPU into one such that the arithmetic logic unit and control unit were all put into a single device, a small chip. With the coming in of Intel into play in the production and invention of central processing units, the evolution happened much faster because the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, was created eight years before the first personal computer came into play. With this, a second Intel processor, 8008, was created in 1972 and was an upgrade of the 4004 in that it was twice as powerful (DejaVu Design, n.d). A timeline look at the evolution of the central processing unit indicates that it is Intel that played the largest role in the revolution of the central processing unit considering that after the Intel 8008, there was a successor, the Intel 8080. This processor was based on the transistor standard of manufacture, where there were fewer transistors as compared to the earlier Intel models and by far beat the multiple printed board CPUs. The Intel 8080 served, as the processor of the first personal computer with a speed of 2nhz and its successor was the Intel 8086, and utilized the IBM standard, where the processor ran at different speeds being a 16-bit processor (“Evolution of Microprocessors”, n.d). Thus, taking this into consideration, it could run at 5Mhz, 8Mhz and 10Mhz, and it is with this that the x86 architecture of central processing units came into being due to its 16bit architecture that allowed the passage of 16bit binary numbers into a 16 bit data bus (“Evolution of Microprocessors”, n.d). Another player in the CPU business was Motorola, which released the Motorola 6800used in Macintosh computers from Apple, which was followed by NEC v20 and v30 by the Japanese. The above marked the beginning of cloning of Intel processors for speed, efficiency and power saving as well as cost effectiveness and it laid the ground for other cloning companies. On the evolution line, there was a new invention in the Motorola line of central processing units that paved the way for the creation of graphic user interfaces in computers. This processor saw Macintosh develop the first graphical user interface that was the adopted by other operating system creators. Looking back at the cloning of Intel CPUs, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) started cloning Intel’s processors for cost reasons since Intel’s processors were too high, but the AMD CPU was nearly as effective as the Intel processor considering they were made from the same architecture. The evolution took a major step in the move to Intel Pentium that was much faster than its other processors, and it incorporated many new features including speech and other real life data and not just computational aspects. This went on to be in the Pentium one, two, three and four in the 21st century, but a significant milestone can be seen in easy management of CPUs based on addition and removal of features as is the case for the Intel Celeron (Anthony). The Celeron CPU was based on the Pentium technology, but was a shredded down version of Pentium based processors by taking out certain features that made Intel Pentium fast such as the L2 cache (DejaVu Design, n.d). The latest CPUs come with advanced features that dwarf those of 20th century by far considering that most if not all processors from the 21st century run at clock speeds in gigahertz depending on the number of cores that a single processor chip has. With this, there are CPUs that run with single cores and some that have up to eight physical cores and hyper threading capabilities, where hyper threading refers to the CPU’s ability to create virtual core for faster processing and energy saving capabilities (Arora, n.d). This is especially the case for the latest Intel processors under the name “Core i”, which are based on hyper threading technology and are codenamed ivy bridge and sandy bridge processors (Gerber, 2013). In conclusion, from the inception of the first central processing unit, there have been profound changes in the way that these processing units work in terms of capabilities and speeds, as well as size and energy efficiency. This is not to mention the cost, where advancement in the CPU creation and capabilities has led to creation of new technologies such graphical user interfaces. In recent times, the evolution is even more evident with dwarfing of earlier processors in that their speeds were in kilohertz and megahertz, whereas modern ones run in gigahertz and can increase their speeds through virtualization. References DejaVu Design. (n.d). Guide to processor history. Retrieved from http://www.chips.5u.com/idxhst.html Anthony, S (2011). 4004 to Sandy Bridge: A walk down CPU memory lane. Retrieved from http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105107-4004-to-sandy-bridge-40-years-of-intel-cpus Asgar, A. (2012). Evolution of the Processor (An Infographic). Retrieved from http://technicafe.net/2012/07/evolution-of-processor-infographic.html Evolution of Microprocessors (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.newagepublishers.com/samplechapter/000030.pdf Arora, M. (n.d.). The Architecture and Evolution of CPU-GPU Systems for General Purpose Computing. http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~marora/files/papers/REReport_ManishArora.pdf Gerber, R. (2013). Edison Overview. https://www.nersc.gov/assets/Uploads/EdisonOverview-NUG2013.pdf Read More