Microprocessor

The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU).

Integrated circuit processors are produced in large numbers by highly automated metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) fabrication processes, resulting in a relatively low unit price.

Longer word sizes allow each clock cycle of a processor to carry out more computation, but correspond to physically larger integrated circuit dies with higher standby and operating power consumption.

These include household appliances, vehicles (and their accessories), tools and test instruments, toys, light switches/dimmers and electrical circuit breakers, smoke alarms, battery packs, and hi-fi audio/visual components (from DVD players to phonograph turntables).

The ability to operate computer systems using Boolean Logic was first proven in a 1938 thesis by master's student Claude Shannon, who later went on to become a professor.

In 1951 Microprogramming was invented by Maurice Wilkes at the University of Cambridge, UK, from the realisation that the central processor could be controlled by a specialised program in a dedicated ROM.

[16] Faggin later joined Intel and used his silicon-gate MOS technology to develop the 4004, along with Marcian Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima in 1971.

Since the early 1970s, the increase in capacity of microprocessors has followed Moore's law; this originally suggested that the number of components that can be fitted onto a chip doubles every year.

[20] These projects delivered a microprocessor at about the same time: Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer (CADC) (1970), Texas Instruments' TMS 1802NC (September 1971) and Intel's 4004 (November 1971, based on an earlier 1969 Busicom design).

[27][28] Ray Holt graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 1968, and began his computer design career with the CADC.

[30] According to Parab et al. (2007), The scientific papers and literature published around 1971 reveal that the MP944 digital processor used for the F-14 Tomcat aircraft of the US Navy qualifies as the first microprocessor.

It was made from the same P-channel technology, operated at military specifications and had larger chips – an excellent computer engineering design by any standards.

4,942,516,[33] which was based on a 16-bit serial computer he built at his Northridge, California, home in 1969 from boards of bipolar chips after quitting his job at Teledyne in 1968;[2][34] though the patent had been submitted in December 1970 and prior to Texas Instruments' filings for the TMX 1795 and TMS 0100, Hyatt's invention was never manufactured.

The layout for the four layers of the PMOS process was hand drawn at x500 scale on mylar film, a significant task at the time given the complexity of the chip.

Ted Hoff, the Intel engineer assigned to evaluate the project, believed the Busicom design could be simplified by using dynamic RAM storage for data, rather than shift register memory, and a more traditional general-purpose CPU architecture.

Since SGT was his very own invention, Faggin also used it to create his new methodology for random logic design that made it possible to implement a single-chip CPU with the proper speed, power dissipation and cost.

It was used as the CPU in the Apple IIe and IIc personal computers as well as in medical implantable grade pacemakers and defibrillators, automotive, industrial and consumer devices.

The CDP1802 was used because it could be run at very low power, and because a variant was available fabricated using a special production process, silicon on sapphire (SOS), which provided much better protection against cosmic radiation and electrostatic discharge than that of any other processor of the era.

Timers or sensors would awaken the processor in time for important tasks, such as navigation updates, attitude control, data acquisition, and radio communication.

Other early multi-chip 16-bit microprocessors include the MCP-1600 that Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used in the LSI-11 OEM board set and the packaged PDP-11/03 minicomputer—and the Fairchild Semiconductor MicroFlame 9440, both introduced in 1975–76.

A follow-on chip, the TMS 9980, was designed to compete with the Intel 8080, had the full TI 990 16-bit instruction set, used a plastic 40-pin package, moved data 8 bits at a time, but could only address 16 KB.

The combination of high performance, large (16 megabytes or 224 bytes) memory space and fairly low cost made it the most popular CPU design of its class.

The world's first single-chip fully 32-bit microprocessor, with 32-bit data paths, 32-bit buses, and 32-bit addresses, was the AT&T Bell Labs BELLMAC-32A, with first samples in 1980, and general production in 1982.

When National Semiconductor decided to leave the Unix market, the chip was redesigned into the Swordfish Embedded processor with a set of on-chip peripherals.

The big success of the Series 32000 was in the laser printer market, where the NS32CG16 with microcoded BitBlt instructions had very good price/performance and was adopted by large companies like Canon.

Existing integer registers are extended as are all related data pathways, but, as was the case with IA-32, both floating-point and vector units had been operating at or above 64 bits for several years.

Unlike what happened when IA-32 was extended to x86-64, no new general purpose registers were added in 64-bit PowerPC, so any performance gained when using the 64-bit mode for applications making no use of the larger address space is minimal.

In the mid-1980s to early 1990s, a crop of new high-performance reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessors appeared, influenced by discrete RISC-like CPU designs such as the IBM 801 and others.

The Power4 won "Analysts’ Choice Award for Best Workstation/Server Processor of 2001", and it broke notable records, including winning a contest against the best players on the Jeopardy!

Intel retains higher frequencies and thus has the fastest single core performance,[69] while AMD is often the leader in multi-threaded routines due to a more advanced ISA and the process node the CPU's are fabricated on.