The influence of the microprocessor invention on the trends and shifts in the computer hardware industry is the subject of discussion here.
The building blocks for the control of all electronic equipment (from the simple microwave oven to the avionics equipment in aircraft) include silicon components or semi-conductors. Electronic components such as processors, Integrated circuits (ICs, chips) are fabricated from semi-conductor materials. The factors that are used to determine their selection for a product include performance, size, price and power consumption. Understanding how a designer tradesoff among the factors, depending on the technologies they are used for, is an interesting exercise.
For example, for mobile computing power consumption is an important factor. Batteries limit this factor. Processors are rapidly moving from the previous 5.0 volts to 3.3 volts. Lower voltage implies lower power consumption. Processor power management is especially important in the portable market.
The microprocessor or the computer on a chip led to new approaches in computing.
The architectures could emphasize and exploit the price/ performance ratio of the microprocessor technologies.
Several technological milestones can be noted in this connection.
In the '70s it was the mini-computers. The PC revolutions began in the '80s. Client server technologies emerged in the early to mid-90's. The distributed technologies were combining the matured computer and communication technologies taking advantage of the Internet by the end of the '90s.
Moore's law highlighted the doubling of processor performance about every 18 months. This assumption was based on the single core processors. The newer Processor architectures go beyond Moore's law. Multi-core processors are achieving more stability and increased processor perfornance at lower power and heat. 64 bit processing can handle more memory in the machine. This means larger applications which are memory intensive can get better performance.
These improvements have widened the scope and power of the mid-range servers.
Points to ponder:
How could the improvements to processor architectures influence computing areas such as multi-threading, parallel processing, virtualization?
What could the combined influences of multi-core processors, multi-threading, 64 bit processing be on X86 servers.
Which servers could be gaining or losing market share due to these improvements?
The building blocks for the control of all electronic equipment (from the simple microwave oven to the avionics equipment in aircraft) include silicon components or semi-conductors. Electronic components such as processors, Integrated circuits (ICs, chips) are fabricated from semi-conductor materials. The factors that are used to determine their selection for a product include performance, size, price and power consumption. Understanding how a designer tradesoff among the factors, depending on the technologies they are used for, is an interesting exercise.
For example, for mobile computing power consumption is an important factor. Batteries limit this factor. Processors are rapidly moving from the previous 5.0 volts to 3.3 volts. Lower voltage implies lower power consumption. Processor power management is especially important in the portable market.
The microprocessor or the computer on a chip led to new approaches in computing.
The architectures could emphasize and exploit the price/ performance ratio of the microprocessor technologies.
Several technological milestones can be noted in this connection.
In the '70s it was the mini-computers. The PC revolutions began in the '80s. Client server technologies emerged in the early to mid-90's. The distributed technologies were combining the matured computer and communication technologies taking advantage of the Internet by the end of the '90s.
Moore's law highlighted the doubling of processor performance about every 18 months. This assumption was based on the single core processors. The newer Processor architectures go beyond Moore's law. Multi-core processors are achieving more stability and increased processor perfornance at lower power and heat. 64 bit processing can handle more memory in the machine. This means larger applications which are memory intensive can get better performance.
These improvements have widened the scope and power of the mid-range servers.
Points to ponder:
How could the improvements to processor architectures influence computing areas such as multi-threading, parallel processing, virtualization?
What could the combined influences of multi-core processors, multi-threading, 64 bit processing be on X86 servers.
Which servers could be gaining or losing market share due to these improvements?
