Basic computer operation

The operation of such a computer, once a program and some data have been loaded into RAM, is as follows. The first instruction is transferred from RAM into the control unit and interpreted by the hardware circuitry. For instance, suppose that the instruction is a string of bits that is the code for LOAD 10. This instruction loads the contents of memory location 10 into the ALU. The next instruction, say ADD 15, is fetched. The control unit then loads the contents of memory location 15 into the ALU and adds it to the number already there. Finally, the instruction STORE 20 would store the sum in location 20. At this level the operation of a computer is not much different from that of a pocket calculator. In general, of course, programs are not just lengthy sequences of LOAD, STORE, and arithmetic operations. Most importantly, computer languages include conditional instructions, essentially rules that say, “If memory location n satisfies condition a, do instruction number x next, otherwise do instruction y.” This allows the course of a program to be determined by the results of previous operations—a critically important ability.

Logic design and integrated circuits

Logic design is the area of computer science that deals with the design of electronic circuits to carry out the operations of the control unit, the ALU, the I/O controllers, and more. For example, the addition circuit of the ALU has inputs corresponding to all the bits of the two numbers to be added and outputs corresponding to the bits of the sum. The arrangement of wires and transistors that link inputs to outputs is determined by logic-design principles. The design of the control unit provides the circuits that interpret instructions and control subsequent behaviour. Clearly, it is critical that this circuitry be as efficient as possible; logic design deals with optimizing the circuitry, not just putting together something that will work. Boolean algebra is the mathematical tool used for logic design.

An important area related to architecture is the design of computer chips, or microprocessors, a type of integrated circuit. A microprocessor is a complete CPU—control unit, ALU, and possibly some memory (especially cache)—on a single integrated circuit chip. Additional memory and I/O control circuitry are linked to this chip to form a complete computer. These thumbnail-sized devices contain thousands or millions of transistors, together with wiring, to form the processing and memory units of modern computers.

The process of very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuit design involves a number of stages, which characteristically are as follows: (1) creating the initial functional or behavioral specification, (2) encoding this specification into a hardware description language, (3) breaking down the design into modules and generating sizes and shapes for the eventual chip components, and (4) chip planning, which includes building a “floor plan” to indicate where on the chip the components are to be placed and how they are to be interconnected. The modularization, sizing, and planning stages are often iterated before a final design is reached. The final stage is the formulation of the instructions for the automated production of the chip through an optical lithography process. Computer scientists are involved not only in creating the computer-aided design (CAD) tools to support engineers in the various stages of chip design but also in providing the necessary theoretical results, such as how to efficiently design a floor plan with near-minimal area that satisfies the given constraints.

Advances in integrated-circuit technology have been incredible. For example, in 1971 the first microprocessor chip (Intel Corporation’s 4004) had only 2,300 transistors, in 1993 Intel’s Pentium chip had more than 3 million transistors, and by 1997 the number of transistors on such a chip was about 20 million. A new chip design by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the Power4, containing approximately 170 million transistors, is scheduled to be introduced in 2001. Meanwhile, memory chips reached a billion transistors per chip before 1999.

As the growth of the personal computer industry in the 1980s and ’90s fueled research into ever more powerful processors at ever lower costs, microprocessors became ubiquitous—controlling automated assembly lines, traffic signal systems, and retail inventory systems, to name a few applications, and being embedded in many consumer products, such as automobile fuel-injection systems, kitchen appliances, audio systems, cell phones, and electronic games. See the section Impact of computer systems.