establish a single line based on CMOS technology. The section is followed by the three direct and indirect effects of Moore’s Law to determine classes:

• Microprocessor transistor/chip evolution circa 1971–1985 establish: calculators, home computers, personal computers, and workstations, and lower (than minicomputer) priced computers.

• “Minimal” designs establish new classes circa 1990 that use a “fraction” of the Moore number.

Microsystems evolution using fractional Moore’s

Law-sized SOCs enable small, lower-performing, minimal PC and communication systems including PDAs, PADs, ^100,000 cameras, and cell phones.

• Rapidly evolving microprocessors using CMOS and a simpler RISC architecture appear as the

“killer micro” circa 1985 to have the same perfor- ¹⁰⁰ mance as supercomputers, mainframes, mini-supercomputers, super-minicomputers,

0

and minicomputers built 1960 from slowly evolving, low-density, custom

ECL and bipolar integrated circuits. ECL survived in supercomputers the longest because of its speed and ability to drive the long transmission lines, inherent in large systems. In the end, CMOS density and faster system clocks overtook ECL by 1990.

In the same fashion that killer micros subsumed all the computer classes by combining, it can be speculated that much higher volume—on the order of hundreds of millions—of SFF devices, may evolve more rapidly to subsume a large percentage of personal computing. Finally, tens of billions of dust-sized, embedd-able wirelessly connected platforms that connect everything are likely to be the largest class of all enabling the state of everything to be sensed, effected,

and communicated with.

4004: Busicom Calculator

10,000,000

Transistors (1000s) of each microprocessor or microcomputer

1,000,000

10,000

MICROPROCESSORS CIRCA 1971: THE EVOLVING

_{Intel Itanium} FORCE FORCLASSES IN
THE SECOND PERIOD
_Multicore Figure 3 shows the micro-
^Multithread processors derived directly
SPARC
from the growth of tran-
sistors/chips beginning in
^{64-bit Alpha} 1971. It shows the trajec-
tory of microprocessors
from a 4-bit data path
through, 8-, 16-, 32-, and
64-bit data paths and
address sizes. The figure
shows a second path—the
10 establishment of “mini-
mal” computers that use
less than 50 thousand
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 transistors for the proces-
sor, leaving the remainder
^{Figure 3. Moore’s Law, which} of the chip for memory and other functions (for
^{provides more transistors per} _{chip per year, has resulted in} example, radio, sensors, analog I/O) enabling the
creating the following computer complete SOC. Increased performance, not shown in
^{classes: calculators, home} the figure, is a third aspect of Moore’s Law that allows
computers, personal computers,
_{workstations,} “_multis” _to the “killer micro” formation to subsume all the other,
overtake minicomputers, and high-performance classes that used more slowly
^{clusters using multiple core,} _{multithreading to} evolving bipolar TTL and ECL ICs. Calculators,
overtake mainframes and home computers, personal computers, and worksta-
^{supercomputers.} tions were established as classes as the processor on a
chip evolved to have more transistors with wide data
paths and large address spaces as shown in Figure 3.
In 1971, Intel’s 4004 with a 4-bit data path and
ability to address 4KB was developed and pro-
grammed to be the Busicom Calculator; instead of
developing a special chip as had been customary to
implement calculators, a program was written for the
4004 for it to “behave” as or “emulate” a calculator.

In 1972, Intel introduced the 8008 microprocessor coming from the Datapoint terminal requirement, with a 8-bit data path and ability to access 16KB that allowed limited, programmable computers followed by more powerful 8080-based systems MITS used to introduce its Altair personal computer kit in 1975,

One Million

1,000

Moore’s Law

Intel 32-bit 486 386

68000 Apollo Sun Workstation

ARM Embedded and other

8088 IBM PC

System-on-a-chip computers 6502 Apple, Commodore

8080 Altair

8008 Micral, Scelbi
4004: Busicom Calculator

The “killer micro” enabled by fast floating-point arithmetic subsumed workstations and minicomputers especially when combined to form the “multi” or multiple microprocessor shared memory computer circa 1985. “Multis” became the component for scalable clusters when interconnected by high-speed, low-latency networks. Clusters allow arbitrarily large computers that are limited only by customer budgets. Thus scalability allows every computer structure from a few thousand dollars to several hundred million dollars to be arranged into clusters built from the same components.