What is a Microprocessor?
The Microprocessor (also called the "chip") or Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the "brain" of
every computer, may it be a desktop or laptop computer. The CPU makes all things happen
inside the computer, it performs arithmetic operation and control where data would go based
on certain set of conditions. The microprocessor is a complete computational engine in one
small chip.
Common uses of microprocessors are the following:
• Embedded micro controllers – these are microprocessor found inside many household
electronic appliances, cars, calculators, and many others. These microprocessors are
used where there is a simple processing requirement. They are less flexible,
programmable and complex as the processors we see in our computer.
• Common desktop or laptop processors – these microprocessors can perform a wide
array of tasks. They are normally integrated into a larger system which would include
motherboards, memories, and hard disks and they are capable of being used with a
variety of programs.
• Powerful processors – these microprocessors are the most powerful processors for
high-end servers and extremely powerful computer applications requiring
computations and manipulation of very high volume of data and information.
History of Microprocessors
The first universal microprocessor chip was the Intel 4004 which was released in November
1971 designed to be used at the heart of a Japanese calculator manufacturer, Busicom, who
commissioned Intel to build it. This is also the first integrated circuit to incorporate the CPU,
memory, input and output controllers into one thinking machine. The 4-bit Intel 4004
microprocessor is said to have more power than ENIAC. Ironically, Busicom closed down and
was never able to produce a single product out of Intel 4004. Intel bought the design and
marketing rights to the chip which eventually became a successful product in terms of sales in
the succeeding months.
Inside the Microprocessor
• Control Unit – acts like a traffic policeman that directs and manages the various CPU
components and data.
The control unit decodes the program instructions and directs where the data should go
and what operation will be done next. It increments the program counter so that the
next instruction will now be performed by the CPU. In general, the control unit tells the
ALU what operation to perform, provide data to the ALU for operation and then place
the result to the processor register.
• Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) – is where the arithmetic and logical operation is done. The
arithmetic operation includes addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The
logic operations include Boolean operations such as AND, OR, XOR, and NOT which are
useful to create conditional statements.
• Registers are memories inside the CPU which are literally sitting beside the processor.
They are very fast, but their storage capacity is limited, here is where data that are to
be processed are placed and the results pass through here before they are sent to
memories outside the CPU. Processor today may contain between 4 to 256 registers.
• Cache is a memory located inside the microprocessor chip but it is not considered as a
register. Cache is used to read data coming in from external memory, which is slow
compared to the processor speed whereas the cache speed is a lot faster. Cache
memory comes in 2 or 3 levels depending on the microprocessor chip.
o Level 1 (L1) is the smallest but the fastest,
o Level 2 (L2) is bigger and slower than L1,
o Level 3 (L3) is the largest memory among the three (3) levels but it is the
slowest. It is still a lot faster than the speed of the RAM.
Cache may be between several kilobytes to a few megabytes in size.
• Input/Output is the connection of the microprocessor to the outside world; they allow
the processor to communicate with the RAM, hard disk, and other components inside
the computer system. The motherboard which houses the microprocessor usually
provides the access to the other input/output peripherals.
Microprocessor Future Trends
• Multitasking is the simultaneous running of several programs using one computer. This
is possible because of the very fast speed of computer processing as compared to
processing input and output processes such as printing a document, accessing data
from the hard disk, listening to music, etc. The computer will switch from one program
to another making it look like it is running them simultaneously.
• Pipelining is the technique that allows overlapping of instructions, wherein the other
components of the processor will be operating on different instructions simultaneously,
thereby reducing the amount of computation or operation in one cycle.
• Multi-core Processor is the present trend of microprocessor manufacturing. The speed
of the CPU is increased by placing several processors in a single chip operating in
parallel with one another. Examples are the Intel's Core 2 Duo and the Core 2 Quad
processors which have 2 and 4 respectively in a single chip and AMD's Opteron
processors which came out in 1, 2, 4, and 6 processors in one chip.
• 64-bit Microprocessors are the next generation of microprocessors. They are more
powerful, especially in being able to process large volume of data that can be
transmitted and processed.
o The maximum useful RAM that can be accommodated in a 32-bit set-up is up to
4 GB
o A 64-bit processor useful RAM can reach to up to Millions or more gigabytes
In a 64-bit environment, it would mean you will have 64-bit of registers, 64-bit
of ALUs, and so on to transfer data to the hard disk, input and output devices
offering large volume of data transfer in a given time.
Who will benefit from this increase?
The computer users doing video and photo editing, multimedia creation, computer aided
designing, high volume of data processing, internet and network servers, high-end computer
games, and other computer tasks that process large volume of information will definitely
benefit from this technology.
Ordinary users that simply browse the internet, perform word processing tasks, spreadsheet
calculations, and PowerPoint presentation will not really need this much power at the
moment.
Moore's Law
Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel Corporation, the makers of Intel Microprocessors,
stated that:
"The number of transistors that can be placed on a chip will double every two years."
Intel has so far kept the pace in making this prediction happen, allowing significant strides in
technology. The law has also been linked to the increase of:
• Processor processing speed
• Memory capacity
• Even the number of pixels of digital cameras
The microprocessor silicon technology of 32 nanometer (nm) will be the tiniest to be released
soon as well as the first microprocessor with two (2) billion transistors is slated to be made
inside an Intel Itanium generation of microprocessors.
