The Evolution Of The Microprocessor Argumentative Essay Example For Students

The Evolution Of The Microprocessor Argumentative Essay Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. The Microprocessor has been around since 1971 years, but in the last few years it has changed the American calculators to video games and computers (Givone 1). Many microprocessors have been manufactured for all sorts of products; some have succeeded and some have not. This paper will discuss the evolution and history of the most prominent 16 and 32 bit microprocessors in the microcomputer and how they are similar to and different from each other. Because microprocessors are a subject that most people cannot relate to and do not know much about, this paragraph will introduce some of the terms that will be in-volved in the subsequent paragraphs. Throughout the paper the 16-bit and 32-bit mi-croprocessors are compared and contrasted. The number 16 in the 16-bit microproces-sor refers how many registers there are or how much storage is available for the mi-croprocessor (Aumiaux, 3). The microprocessor has a memory address such as A16, and at this address the specific commands to the microprocessor are stored in the memory of the computer (Aumiaux, 3). So with the 16-bit microprocessor there are 576 places to store data. With the 32-bit microprocessor there are twice as many places to store data making the microprocessor faster. Another common term which is mentioned frequently in the paper is the oscil-lator or the time at which the processors clock ticks. The oscillator is the pace maker for the microprocessor which tells what f requency the microprocessor can proc-ess information, this value is measured in Mega-hertz or MHz. A nanosecond is a measurement of time in a processor, or a billionth of a second. This is used to measure the time it takes for the computer to execute an instructions, other wise knows as a cy-cle. There are many different types of companies of which all have their own family of processors. Since the individual processors in the families were developed over a fairly long period of time, it is hard to distinguish which processors were introduced in order. This paper will mention the families of processors in no particular order. The first microprocessor that will be discussed is the family of microprocessors called the 9900 series manufactured by Texas Instruments during the mid-70s and was developed from the architecture of the 900 minicomputer series (Titus, 178). There were five dif-ferent actual microprocessors that were designed in this family, they were the TMS9900, TMS9980A, TMS9981, TMS9985, and the TMS9940. The TMS9900 was the first of these microprocessors so the next four of the microprocessors where simply variations of the TMS9900 (Titus, 178). The 9900 series microprocessors runs with 64K memory and besides the fact that the 9900 is a 16-bit microprocessor, only 15 of the address memory circuits are in use (Titus, 179). The 16th address is used for the computer to distinguish between word and data functions (Titus, 179. The 9900 series microprocessors runs from 300 nanoseconds to 500 ns from 2MHz to 3.3MHz and even some variations of the original microprocessor where made to go up to 4MHz (Avtar, 115). The next microprocessor that will be discussed is the LSI-11 which was pro-duced from the structural plans of the PDP-11 minicomputer family. There are three microprocessors in the LSI-11 family they are the LSI-11, LSI-11/2, and the much im-proved over the others is the LSI-11/32 (Titus, 131). The big difference between the LSI-11 family of microprocessors and other similar microprocessors of its kind is they have the instruction codes of a microcomputer but since the LSI-11 microprocessor originated from the PDP-11 family it is a multi-microprocessor (Avtar, 207). The fact that the LSI-11 microprocessor is a multi-microprocessor means that many other mi-croprocessors are used in conjunction with the LSI-11 to function properly (Avtar, 207). The LSI-11 microprocessor has a direct processing speed of 16-bit word and 7-bit data, however the improved LSI-11/22 can directly process 64-bit data (Titus, 131). The average time that the LSI-11 and LSI-11/2 process at are 380 nanoseconds, wh ile the LSI-11/23 is clocked at 300 nanoseconds (Titus, 132). There are some great strengths that lie in the LSI-11 family, some of which are the efficient way at which the microprocessor processes and the ability to run minicomputer software which leads to great hardware support (Avtar, 179). Although there are many strengths to the LSI-11 family there are a couple of weaknesses, they have limited memory and the slow-ness of speed at which the LSI-11 processes at (Avtar, 179). Atomic bomb impact in wwII EssayThe next family of microprocessor which was fabricated for the microcomputer is the MC68020 32-bit microprocessor which is based on the MC68000 family. The other microprocessors that are included in this family are the MC68000, MC68008, MC68010 and the MC68012 (Avtar, 302). Before going into the types of components that this microprocessor contains, it should first be know that the making of the MC68020 has been the product of 60 man-years of designing including the manufac-turing of the High-density Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor giving the mi-croprocessor high speed and low resistance and heat loss (Avtar, 302). Because of all the work that was put into the MC68020 and its other related microprocessors, it is an extremely complex microprocessor. The MC68020 operates in two modes, these are the user mode(for application programs) or the supervisor mode (the operating system and other special functions) (Mitchell, 155). The user and supervis or modes all have there own specific registers to operate their functions. The user programming has 17 32-bit address registers, and an 8-bit register (Mitchell, 155). Then the supervisor pro-gramming has three 32-bit, an 8-bit and two 3-bit registers for small miscellaneous functions (Mitchell, 155). All of these registers within the two modes are split up into different groups which would hold different information as usual, but this set up of registers gives the microprocessors a 20 32-bit information storing capacity. The next family of microprocessor is Intels 80386 and 80486 families. The 80386 and 80486 were mostly over all better then the other microprocessors being made by the different companies in the industry at this time, simply because Intel is now the leading microprocessor producer in todays market. The 80386 was a product that evolved from Intels very first microprocessor, the 8-bit 8080 (Mitchell, 85). Then next came the earlier mentioned 16-bit 8086. The reason wh y Intel did so well in the market for microprocessors was because every microprocessor that they made was compatible with the previous and future (Mitchell, 85). This means that if a piece of software worked on the 8080 then it worked on the future microprocessors and vice-a-versa. Not only did Intel look forward but they looked back. The main difference between the 80386 and the other 32-bit microprocessors is the added feature of a bar-rel shifter (Mitchell, 88). The barrel shifter allowed information to switch places mul-tiple times in the registers within a single cycle (Mitchell, 88). The microprocessor contains 8 general purpose 32-bit registers, but with the barrel shifter that is increased to the equivalent of a 64-bit microprocessor. For the most common 20MHz 80386 microprocessor the run time for each cycle is 59 nanoseconds, but for a 33MHz mi-croprocessor the cycle time is reduced to 49 nanoseconds. The next 32-bit microprocessor in market are ATTs WE32100 and 32200 (Mitchell, 5). These microprocessors also needed six peripheral chips in order to run, these are termed: Memory Management Units, floating point arithmetic, Maths Accel-eration Units, Direct Memory Access Control, and Dynamic Rand Access Memory Control (Mitchell, 5). These microprocessors apart from the microprocessors all work an important part of processing the data that comes through the microprocessor. The difference from this microprocessor and the others is because the WE32200 address information over the 32-bit range with the help of a disk to work as a slow form of memory (Mitchell, 9). The WE32200 microprocessor runs at a frequency of 24MHz (Mitchell, 9). The 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors are a mere page in the great book of processor history. There will be many new and extremely different processors in the near future. A tremendous amount of time and money have been put into the making and improving of the microprocessor. The improving and investment of billions of dollars are continually going toward the cause of elaborating the microprocessors. The evolution of the microprocessor will continue to evolve for the better until the time when a much faster and more efficient electronic device is invented. This is turn will create a whole new and powerful generation of computers. Hopefully this paper has given the reader some insight into the world of microprocessor and how much work has been put into the manufacturing of the microprocessor over the years. BibliographyMitchel, H.J. 32-bit Microprocessors. Boston: CRC Press. 1986,1991Titus, Christopher A. 16-Bit Microprocessors. Indiana: Howard W. Sams Co., Inc. 1981Aumiaux, M. Microprocessor Systems. New York: John Wiley Sons. 1982Givone, Donald D.; Rosser, Robert P. Microprocessors/Microcomputers. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1980Avtar, Singh. 16-Bit and 32-Bit Microprocessors: Architecture, Software, and Interfacing Techniques: New Jersey. Englewood Cliffs. 1991Category: Technology