Michael Monroig Michael Fiorelli

 The Processor is also known as the CPU or Central Processing Unit.  Processors carry out the instructions of computer programs and complete many of the main functions of a computer.  Current processors exist as one unit. The first “Fixed-Program Computers” had to be physically wired and reconfigured in order to perform different tasks.

 The Intel 8086 is a 16- bit processor.  It contains 29,000 transistors and 20 address lines.  It works with up to 1 MB of RAM.  Made in 1978  The Intel 8088 was essentially the same chip, except with a 8- Bit data bus.  It was used in the original IBM PC.  Made in 1979

 Processors perform many calculations on data it obtains from main memory.  When a program is chosen from secondary memory it is passed onto Main Memory (RAM). Each of these programs contain machine instructions which the processor uses to access the data it needs for the program to run. This is known as executing a program.

 Before a program is executed data flows from RAM to CPU through the memory bus. The Memory Bus connects CPU and RAM.  A part of the processor known as the instruction decoder decodes data and then interprets and executes machine instructions for the program.  The data is then passed to the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU). This performs the necessary calculations for the program to run.

 Moore’s Law explains a common trend in the number of transistors on processors.  Since the first processor, companies have worked to create newer models which have a much higher number of transistors than the previous one. This is possible because of how rapidly technology advances.  Based on this trend the number of transistors doubles about every two years.

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 Intel, a leading producer in the processor industry, is pledging to commercially produce 80 core processors in about 5 years.  According to CEO Paul Otellini, the processors’ chips are capable of exchanging data at 1 TB per second.  This new processor contains 80 floating-point cores, which will run at 3.16GHz each. In order for data to flow between the processor and main memory, static RAM chips will be directly connected to the bottom of the processor. On-chip interconnect fabric will allow data to be shared amongst the cores.

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