Transcript 146 Hardware - UWEC Computer Science Department

CS 146
The Big Picture in
Computer Science
PROF. DANIEL ERNST
F E B R U A R Y 2 8 TH, 2 0 1 1
COMPUTER HARDWARE
What would you say is the greatest
invention of the 20th century?
(ABC News poll, 1999)
Top responses
Computers
Automobile ???
Electricity
Television
Telephone/Telecommunications
Airplane
Medicines/Vaccinations
%
30
12
9
9
7
4
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“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
4
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
6
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
hardware
software
Apps
Applications – Generic Software
O/S
Operating System – Controlling Software
Arch
Architecture – HW/SW Interface
mArch
marchitecture – High-level organization
Logic
Digital Logic – Building-block Modules
Digital
Digital Circuits – Continuous  Discrete
Analog
Analog Circuits – Fun with Electricity
Devices
Devices – Transistors, Capacitors, etc.
Physics
Physical Properties – Electrons, Ions, etc.
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