Chapter 5 : Designing for Performance

Basic fundamentals of designing

18 March, 2018     

Year by year, the cost of computer systems continues to drop dramatically, while the performance and capacity of those systems continue to rise equally dramatically. For example, desktop applications that require the great power of today’s microprocessor-based systems include

• Image processing
• Speech recognition
• Videoconferencing
• Multimedia authoring
• Voice and video annotation of files

Workstation systems now support highly sophisticated engineering and scientific applications, as well as simulation systems, and have the ability to support image and video applications. In addition, businesses are relying on increasingly powerful servers to handle transaction and database processing and to support massive client/server networks that have replaced the huge mainframe computer centers of yesteryear.

RC delay: The speed at which electrons can flow on a chip between transistors is limited by the resistance and capacitance of the metal wires connecting them; specifically, delay increases as the RC product increases. As components on the chip decrease in size, the wire interconnects become thinner, increasing resistance. Also, the wires are closer together, increasing capacitance.

Power: As the density of logic and the clock speed on a chip increase, so does the power density (Watts/cm2).The difficulty of dissipating the heat generated on high-density, high-speed chips is becoming a serious design issue. You can see the change in clock speed, size and # of transistors. Today’s processors are so much fast and reliable and that is the reason of their performance.

Thanx.. We will carry on and learn the basics of Von Neumann Architecture in next chapters..