MICROPROCESSOR History Classification Realization Biohacking WHAT IS THE

MICROPROCESSOR History Classification Realization Biohacking

WHAT IS THE MICROPROCESSORS ? It is a particular type of electronic circuit that is characterized by being entirely made up of one or more integrated circuits and therefore very small in size. Microprocessor technology is currently the most used for the construction of the CPU and GPU (mounted directly on a motherboard) and is used by almost all modern computers, with the characteristic of using, for all its processing, a set of basic instructions (instruction set).

History The construction of microprocessors was made possible by the advent of LSI technology, based on the new "Silicon Gate Technology" developed by the Italian Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968: by integrating a complete CPU into a single chip it significantly reduced the costs of computers.

History However, the performance increase that occurred at the end of the 1980 s is mainly due to the improvement of the computer architecture, through the adoption of RISC technologies, such as the use of pipelines and cache memory hierarchies.

8 -BIT 16 -BIT MICROPROCESSORS 32 -BIT 64 -BIT MICROPROCESSORS

8 -BIT The 4004 was followed in 1972 by the 8008, the world's first 8 -bit microprocessor, later evolved into the more famous Intel 8080 (1974). From the 8080 project was derived the Z 80 produced in 1976 by Zi. LOG, a company founded by Federico Faggin with Ralph Ungerman in 1975. Binary compatible with programs written for the 8080, the Z 80 included many improvements that made it quickly prefer to 8080 by users. Intel reacted by producing in 1977 its own improved version of the 8080, the 8085, which is also binary compatible with programs written for the 8080, but much lower than the Z 80.

16 -BIT The first 16 -bit microprocessor was the multiintegrated National Semiconductor IMP-16. It was introduced in 1973 and an 8 -bit version called IMP 8 was introduced in 1974. In 1975 National presented the first single-bit 16 -bit microprocessor PACE, which was followed by the NMOS version called INS 8900. Other 16 -bit multichip systems were the LSI-11 produced by Digital Equipment Corporation for the PDP 11/03 minicomputer and the Fairchild Semiconductor 9440 Micro. Flame produced between 1975 and 1976. The first singlechip 16 -bit microprocessor was the Texas Instruments TMS-9900 is a processor compatible with the TI 990 minicomputer line.

32 -BIT The first 32 -bit microprocessor was the BELLMAC-32 A produced by AT&T Bell Labs and the first specimens were produced in 1980 while mass production began in 1982 (see here for the bibliography or here for the features). In 1984 after the break-up of AT&T the microprocessor was renamed WE 32000 (WE by Western Electric) and two successors were developed, the WE 321000 and the WE 32200. These microprocessors were used in the AT&T 3 B 5 and 3 B 15 minicomputers. The 3 B 2 was the first desktop superminicomputer. The processors were also used in Companion the first 32 -bit laptop and in Alexander the first supermicrocomputer the size of a book. The system was also equipped with ROM cartridges, similar to those used by some current consoles. All these machines were running the original Unix developed by Bell Labs and included the first graphical manager called xt-layer.

64 -BIT AMD introduced the first 64 -bit system compatible with the x 86 architecture in September 2003 with the Athlon 64. This microprocessor implemented the AMD 64 a 64 -bit expansion of the AI-32 developed by AMD. Intel came shortly thereafter with the x 86 -64 extension which despite having a different name was the extension developed by AMD; in fact it was fully compatible. The processors supported 32 -bit instructions for compatibility but only with the 64 -bit mode could they show their full power. With the 64 bit switch, the registers managed by the processor instruction set were doubled to improve system performance. The shortage of records has always been a problem for x 86 architectures.

Multicore architectures Multi-core processors potentially allow multiplication of performance based on the number of cores (provided the operating system is able to take advantage of them). The various cores can share some components like the interface bus or the second level cache. The extreme proximity of the different cores allows a much faster exchange of data compared to traditional discrete SMP systems, improving overall performance.

CLASSIFICATION MONOLITHIC GENERAL PURPOSE SPECIAL PURPOSE MICROPROCESSOR

MONOLITHIC MICROPROCESSOR A monolithic microprocessor is a microprocessor consisting of a single integrated circuit. This important milestone was achieved in the early seventies of the last century thanks to the remarkable and surprising advances made by microelectronics: only two decades earlier there was not even imagined a processor entirely contained in a single electronic component able to occupy the space of a few centimeters cubes.

GENERAL PURPOSE MICROPROCESSOR A general purpose microprocessor is a microprocessor designed to be used in the most varied data processing. It is therefore used as a CPU in general purpose computers, but also in other tasks. For example, peripherals that require great computing power can be equipped with their own processor in order not to burden the central processor. And general purpose microprocessors are often used for these devices. An example of peripherals in which general purpose microprocessors are used are printers.

SPECIAL PURPOSE MICROPROCESSOR A special purpose microprocessor is a microprocessor designed to be used in particular data processing. An example of a special purpose microprocessor is the microcontroller. Other examples of special purpose microprocessors are microprocessors that implement digital signal processors, graphics processing units and floating point calculation units. Many special purpose microprocessors have limited programming possibilities or are not completely programmable

Realization In recent years it has begun to use Silicon in combination with Germanium with the technique of stretched silicon (Strained-Silicon). This technique consists in depositing, on the body of the silicon wafer, a layer of silicongermanium of 2 microns with a concentration of germanium equal to 20%; the concentration of germanium is not uniform throughout the layer: there is a greater concentration on the top of the structure. At this point a very thin layer of silicon about 20 nm thick is deposited on the silicon-germanium layer. This technique lengthens the crystalline silicon crosslinking of about 1% both in the lateral and vertical direction and this allows an enormous increase on the mobility of the charge carriers, which meet a lower resistance when they pass and flow up to 70% faster, which makes the chips faster by around 30% without the need for further miniaturization. The principle that underlies all this is that the silicon atoms of the overlying layer tend to align with those of the silicon-germanium layer which, being thicker, forces the silicon atoms to span a distance similar to that of atoms of silicon-germanium.

BIOHACKING There is a great movement called "biohacking", in which people get themselves implanted in the body a chip capable of performing various activities, such as opening a door, starting a car, or unlocking personal devices without using PIN codes. The chip is the size of a grain of rice, is implanted in one hand uses the RFID technology. The biohacking community, which consists of 500 chipped members, thinks having an implanted chip is no different from wearing an earring or having a tattoo. In the future, chips could also be used to pay in stores, monitor our health and keep track of heart rate and body temperature.