Architectural Trends I
Architecture translates technology’s gifts to performance and capability
Resolves the tradeoff between parallelism and locality
- Current microprocessor: 1/3 compute, 1/3 cache, 1/3 off-chip connect
- Tradeoffs may change with scale and technology advances
Four generations of architectural history: tube, transistor, IC, VLSI
- Here focus only on VLSI generation
- Future generations COULD be Quantum and Superconducting technology
Greatest delineation within VLSI generation has been in type of parallelism exploited