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1.0 INTRODUCTION TO MICROPROCESSOR
1.1 Historical Background Important Background about how microprocessor and microcontroller originated. The stages are as follow: 1947: Invention Transistor 1959: Invention of Integrated circuit 1965: Birth of Moore’s Law 1971: Development of first microprocessor 1976: Introduction of first microcontroller
1947: Invention of Transistor: This herald in an new era in the electronic industry. Two years after transistor were commercially available, Electronics jettison the use of values that were bulky & consume a lot of power. Transistor were developed from semi conductors, silicon and germanium.
1959: Invention of Integrated circuit: Integrated circuit is one in which number of transistors or components are fabricated on a single silicon waver. The rate of developing using IC were high and lead the birth of Moore’s law in 1965
1965: Birth of Moore’s Law: This is the law stated by Moore to predict the birth of future Integrated circuits.
Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The observation is named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, whose 1965 paper described a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit and projected this rate of growth, would continue for at least another decade.
The table below shows a trend that corroborates Moore’s law content.
PROCESSOR
YEAR OF
INTRODUCTION
NUMBER OF
TRANSISTORS
Pentium 1993 3100000 Pentium II 1997 7500000 Pentium III 1999 26000000 Pentium IV 2000 42000000
1971: Development of first microprocessor: Development of first microprocessor based on IC was developed by Intel; 4004. Definition: microprocessor refers to all the components found in CPU include ALU, Registers, Timing & Control unit) which can be put on a single chip.
Microprocessor can simply be referred to as CPU-on-a-chip
The Microprocessor architecture comprises of the components of CPU provided with interface to connect to memory and input/output devices.
Figure 2.1: a microprocessor
1.2 EVOLUTION TREE OF MICROPROCESSOR
1.2.1 MAIN BRANCH
The processor in the main branch is the general purpose processor. It consists of 4 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit and 64 bit.
Pipelining, super scalar and cache are the methods used in improving the performance of the processors.
Application of General Purpose Microprocessor
- General purpose processors are used in the CPU of desktop computers & Laptop computers
- It also being used in the Servers, super computers and PCs.
1.2.2 MICROCONTROLLER BRANCH
Microcontrollers are mostly being used in embedded systems. Embedded systems refer to the combination of Hardware & Software Design for some specific applications which include the following:
TYPE OF EMBEDDED
SYSTEM
EXAMPLES
Consumer Products Toys, cameras, camcorders, robots etc
Instrumentation Intelligent instruments like oscilloscope, medical instruments
Consumer products Washing machines, microwave oven
Process control Data acquisition & control in industry
Communication Telephone set, answering machine
Office equipment Fax machine, printers, PABX
Emerging Multimedia Applications
Cell phones PDM, Teleconferencing
SPECIAL PURPOSE MICROPROCESSOR
This involve processors for special equipment such as those being used in:
i. Digital Signal Processing (DSP) processors ii. Communication Processors ( switches, routers and detectors)
FEATURES OF MICROCONTROLLER AND MICROPROCESSOR COMPARED WITH
OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES OR CIRCUIT
I. Smaller size II. Lower cost III. Higher reliability IV. Lower power consumption V. Higher versatility (flexibility i.e different application) VI. More powerful ( power is increasing over the year.
