Developments in CPU over the past 20 years

This article discusses the developments in CPU technology over the past 20 years, including increased processing power, reduction in size, and different types of CPUs for various platforms like laptops, tablets, smartphones, and gaming consoles.

Running head: COMPUTER HARDWARE
COMPUTER HARDWARE
Name of Student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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A.C:5.1
The developments in CPU over past 20 years
A particular central processing unit, is an electronic device that tends to execute
instruction of a specific computer program. This is done with the help of performing basic
arithmetic, control, logical, output or input operations (Hwang and Jotwani 2016). These
operations have been specified by numerous instructions in a particular computer. In past 20
years, technology has been through numerous developments in various devices including
CPU, this includes restructuring of ways by which processors function. One of the most
important development that had been noticeable as well include increase in processing power,
reduction in size, different types of CPU that are responsible for working in various kinds of
platform like laptops, tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and many more (Yeo, Lee and
Lim 2015).
Image 1: The developments in CPU over past 20 years

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Furthermore we would aim in discussing regarding the specifications of the processors,
some of the processors include Pentium III, Pentium 4, AMD-K6, AMD Athlon/Athlon XP,
Itanium and Itanium 2, 64 bit processors, Athlon 64 and 64FX, AMD Opteron, Dual core
processors- Intel and dual core processors- AMD (Shah 2018). The discussion is as follows
1. Pentium III: the Pentium III is mostly similar to Pentium II, but in this case it works
with the help of a high speed of clock. The very initial processors had been structured
in 0.25 micrometre technology and the final Pentium III had reached around 0.13
micrometres (Tanenbaum 2016). It contained a new set of numerous instructions
which is known as SSE-Streaming SIMD Extensions. It had provided with numerous
floating point versions of the MMX instructions and many more. It had also improved
the processing of multimedia (Bal and Bicen 2016). This requires support from
software that had packaged starting from the Windows 98 with its DirectX 6.1.
2. AMD- K6: AMD K6 had been based on the processors Nx686 which had been
designed by NexGen when AMD had needed it. This includes MMX instruction, it
might reach speeds of the 300 MHz, and the L1 cache usually has 64 Kb. It had been
PIN compatible along with Pentium of socket 7.
3. AMD Athlon/Athlon XP: the processors had used their own sockets for connecting
with the motherboard, they are not compatible along with Intel. The completely newly
introduced FPU- pipelined as well as triple issued (Raven, Qalawee and Atroshi
2016). This processors had contained Intel’s SSE as well, it had been released in a
particular economic version, this version had been distinguished in the namely of
Duron, this consists of limited memory that cache in nature.
4. Pentium 4: this Pentium 4 has been introduced in the year of 2000, this has started
from 0.18 micrometres at the 1.3GHz and had reached around 0.09 micrometres

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technology that runs in 3.8 GHz (Shimobaba, Kakue and Ito 2015). It had introduced
various new sets of instructions in the field of SSE, SSE 2 as well as SSE 3. The L1
cache of 8 kb to the 16 kb, L2 cache is around 1MB. Hyper threading had simulated
round two processors in this particular system.
5. 64bit processors: the very first 64 bit processor had been released in the year of 2001
with the help of the company Intel- Itanium. After almost year, it had improved it to
the Itanium 2 (Mahapatra, Sahu and Nanda2017). In the year of 2003 AMD released a
component called Athlon 64 and later Opteron for the use of the server. In the year of
2004, Intel had released numerous versions of the Pentium 4 which were having
instructions of around 64.
6. Athlon 64 and 64FX: it had been the very initial 64 bit processor for the purpose of
usability of desktop. Athlon 64 tends to communicate along with peripheries as well
as memory through the North Bridge. The overall size of the cache along with the
length of bus are very different between the Athlon 64 along with Athlon 64 FX.
When compared with Itanium, the component named Athlon 64 had around 68-114
numerous transistors (Kelly 2018). It consists of 12 stages of pipeline, L1 cache is
around 1MB along with the SSE2, the new instructions for the sound as well as
graphics.
Impact of 2 of these major developments
The two of the major developments that had been discussed include 64 bit processors
and Pentium III. The 64 bit processors has numerous impacts on the everyday life of people.
The main impact that 64 bit processors has include the ability of having 64 bit pointer types
which allows numerous addresses that are virtual in nature, this address ranger far more than
4 GB in size (Xiao, Forte and Jin 2016). On a particular 32 bit CPU, the size of the pointer is

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around 32bits in width, besides this, it allows the pointer to refer to the one of around 2^32
addresses that are discrete in nature.
Pentium III usually runs with the help of standard 100MHz FSB along with the use of
50x clock multiplier setting. Clock multiplier helps Pentium III in operating, because the
multiplier is locked at around 5.0x setting of clock multiplier, the clock multiplier is functions
of the CPU and not of motherboard. The minimum requirements that are necessary for
supporting around 100MHz FSB and 1.8v core voltage.
A.C:6.1
Features of two different storage devices
The two storage devices that have been chosen are flash memory devices and optical
storage devices. Flash memory is known as a particular memory chip that is non-volatile in
nature and is used for transferring information among computers and storing data as well. It
tends to have the ability of being reprogrammed as well as erased in an electronic manner. It
has been found that in various USB flash drives, digital cameras, drivers that are in solid state
and MP3 players and many more (Savage and Knezevic 2015). Flash memory is a particular
type of erasable programmable read only memory which is electronically in nature.
Optical storage is a particular storage type where data has been written and hence read
with the usage of laser. The data that is typical in nature, is written in optical media like
compact discs as well as DVDs. The insufficient growth in the overall ability when compared
to the solid state flash storage and hard disk storage has attempted to implement hard disk and
hence solid state flash storage has been relegated the optical storage with the usage of optical
storage.
Features of two different Input / Output (I/O) devices

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Features of 2 input and output devices
The 2 output devices that will be taken into consideration are as follows: -
 Bluetooth Speakers
 LED Monitor
The features of Bluetooth speakers are as follows: -
 Versatile portability: the main advantage that us gained after the usage of the
Bluetooth speakers include the fact that communication with the speakers gets easy.
With the help of proper portability the communication process gets bettered and this
can be considered as easing the processing of the living style of the people owning the
Bluetooth speaker. Separation of the 2 speakers helps in bettering the process of
Dolby sound generation.
 Rechargeable battery is also considered as a major advantage.
 Rugged Durability of the Bluetooth speakers are also the major aspects that benefits
the functional silicon shell protects the speakers from extreme weather conditions.
 Most of the Bluetooth speakers are the water resistant.
The features of LED monitors are as follows: -
 TFT LCD is the LCD Panel type that is used
 W LED system is the backlight type that is used in the LED monitor
 The viewing area is 476.64 (H) x 268.11 (V)
 The brightness of the TV that is provided is 250 cd/m²
 The scanning frequency that is present in the LED monitors is 30 -83 kHz (H) / 56 -75
Hz (V)
 The viewing angle of the LED television includes 170º (H) / 160º (V)
 The optimum resolution of the LED television is 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz

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Smart phones are true multimedia devices
Yes, I agree with the fact that smart phones are the true multimedia devices. The main
instance that is present includes the fact that proper day to day computing process is
performed with the help of the multimedia processing as per the desktop experience
integration in the mobile multimedia application. The challenge of providing high quality
desktop experience is provided via proper GPU multimedia implementation and hence proper
management of the multimedia execution gets performed. Usage of heterogeneous platform
has been due to the betterment in the wireless network condition that is present in the cellular
phones. Focusing on the key requirements of the multimedia application is well integrated in
the phones and hence band width intensive data sectional dealing of the multi-media related
issue in mobiles are well maintained. Implementation of user centric strategy for better
strategy development for performing the multimedia related issues for high quality mobile
multimedia applications. Smooth streaming of data provided via mobile phones get
performed via user centric strategies. Hence with the help of user centric strategies it can be
stated that smart phones are the true multimedia device. The user experience provisioning
gets performed in accord to the community interface.

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References
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