Homework Question. Faster, faster, faster! (40 points)

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1 Homework Question. Faster, faster, faster! (40 points) Microprocessor Challenge to Intel Launched By MATTHEW FORDAHL, The Associated Press, Monday, February 7, 2005; 8:11 PM SAN FRANCISCO - Setting up a battle for the future of computing, engineers from IBM, Sony and Toshiba unveiled details Monday of a microprocessor they claim has the muscle of a supercomputer and can power everything from video game consoles to business computers. Devices built with the processor, code-named Cell, will compete directly with the PC chips that have powered most of the world's personal computers for a quarter century. Cell's designers say their chip, built from the start with the burgeoning world of rich media and broadband networks in mind, can deliver 10 times the performance of today's PC processors. It also will not carry the same technical baggage that has made most of today's computers compatible with older PCs. That architectural divergence will challenge the current dominant paradigm of computing that Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have fostered. The new chip is expected to be used in Sony Corp.'s next-generation PlayStation game console in Toshiba Corp. plans to incorporate it into high-end televisions that year as well. And IBM Corp. has said it will sell a workstation with the chip starting later this year. Beyond that, companies are remaining coy about where it might be used and whether it will be compatible with older technology. Supercomputer claims are nothing new in the high-tech industry, and over the years chip and computer companies have steadily improved microprocessor performance even without altering chips' underlying architecture. And while its competitors may well match the Cell chip in performance by the time it debuts, it differs considerably from today's processors in constitution. Cell is comprised of several computing engines, or cores. A core based on IBM's Power architecture controls eight "synergistic" processing centers. In all, they can simultaneously carry out 10 instruction sequences, compared with two for today's Intel chips. The new microprocessor also is expected to be able to run multiple operating systems and programs at the same time while ensuring each has enough resources. In the home, that could allow for a device that's capable of handling a video game, television and general-purpose computer at once. "It's very flexible," said Jim Kahle, an IBM senior fellow. "We support many operating systems with our virtualization technology so we can run multiple operating systems at the same time, doing different jobs on the system." Later this year, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plan to release their own "multicore" chips, which also increase the number of instructions that can be executed at once. IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. already sell chips with multiple cores, mainly for business servers. On Monday, Intel announced that it has completed the first product runs of its dual-core processors and said it plans to deliver two separate dual-core Pentium chips and chipsets in the second quarter. 1

2 Cell appears to have an advantage in the number of transistors million compared with 125 million for today's latest Pentium 4 chips. Traditional chip makers, however, have regularly doubled their number of transistors every 12 to 18 months. Cell is said to run at clock speeds greater than 4 gigahertz, which would top the 3.8 GHz of Intel's current topspeed chip. Cell's designers said they are running a variety of operating systems on the processor at their lab in Austin, Texas. But they would not say whether Microsoft's Windows is one of them. In fact, they only confirmed running Linux, the open source environment. The PC industry has seen a long line of chips attempt to usurp the x86 architecture pioneered by Intel that dominates today's computers. But all have failed, and Intel remains the world's largest chip maker. In the 1990s, IBM, Motorola Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. pushed the PowerPC architecture. Though it's still used by the Apple Macintosh as well as IBM workstations and servers, it failed to dethrone Intel. Most recently, Transmeta Corp.'s Crusoe was supposed to challenge Intel's dominance in notebooks. Launched at the twilight of the tech boom in 2000, it gained only marginal acceptance and the company is now considering plans to focus on licensing its patents. Intel has since developed its own mobile chip technology, Centrino. "Transmeta was also a disruptive influence in the market. And because of Transmeta, we've got Centrino and the advances that have happened in mobile computing," said Steve Kleynhans, a Meta Group analyst. "Unfortunately, we don't really have Transmeta anymore." For a challenger to succeed in displacing x86, it will have to perform considerably better since it also will break computing's long-standing tradition of backward and forward compatibility, said Justin Rattner, who oversees Intel's Corporate Technology Group. "They're going to have to show they're able to do things that conventional architectures at least at the moment are incapable of doing," he said. "That's the fundamental question." The Cell's specifications also suggest the PlayStation 3 will offer realistic graphics and strong performance. But analysts cautioned that not all the features in a product announcement will find their way into all systems built on the device. "Any new technology like this has two components," Kleynhans said. "It has the vision of what it could be because you need the big vision to sell it. Then there's the reality of how it's really going to be used, which generally several levels down the chain from there." 2005 The Associated Press Additional Information Cell is fairly large, with a die size of 221 square millimeters. The latest version of the Pentium M is only about 84 square millimeters. Source: 2

3 Let s look at the speed first. (a) You read that Cell is said to run at clock speeds greater than 4 gigahertz. State how many Hertz that is; provide as many zeros as indicated by giga. The clock speed also is called the cycle speed and the time required for one cycle is the time in which one basic operation can be carried out on the chip. If, for example, the clock speed were 100 Hertz, the time for one cycle would be one hundredth of a second. Compute the time for one cycle of the Cell chip; provide the answer as an integer and add the appropriate prefix before second (e.g. milli, micro, nano, pico, femto, ). (6 points) 4 GHz = 4, Hz 1 cycle takes seconds. (b) How far does light travel in 1 nanosecond? And how far does it travel during one cycle of the Cell chip? Provide your answer in nanometers. Show your work. For the speed of light, use c = 300,000 km/s (exact value is 299, km/s and close). (6 points) In 1 ns: nm In 1 cycle of Cell chip: nm Show work: 3

4 Now, let s look at the size. (c) The Washington Post article mentions how many transistors are on the Cell chip. Find the number and reproduce it right here: transistors. Compute the area of 1 transistor. Assume that all transistors are on the same level, that they are packed without space between them, and that there is nothing but transistors on the chip. Provide your answer in square nanometers, nm 2. Show your work. (6 points) Area for 1 transistor on Cell chip: nm 2 Show work: (d) Visit Winter s periodic system of the elements at and find the element-element distance within the element for silicon (under atomic radii ) and write it down here in picometers: pm. Assume that each transistor is completely square, how many Si-atoms would fit along one edge of one such squared transistor area? Show work. (6 points) 4

5 (e) Which companies are collaborating to build the new Cell chip and in what countries are their headquarters? Which company is the primary target of the Cell chip offensive and in which country is this company s headquarter? (8 points) Target: (f) What is conceptually totally wrong with this picture ( (8 points). 5