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ECE 3130
Microcomputer Systems

01 Architecture
Computer

Chapter 1
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Outline

• Fundamentals of computer design

• ARM (What and Why)

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The Fundamentals of Computer Design

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The Fundamentals of Computer Design

• Architecture
• Set of specifications that allows developers to write software and firmware. These
include the instruction set.
• Microarchitecture
• Logical organization of the inner structure of the computer. Sometimes also called
the “organization”
• Hardware or Implementation
• The realization or the physical structure, i.e., logic design and chip packaging
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Architecture Specifications

• The architecture specifies a contract

between the hardware and
software.
• Many different compatible
processors may be implemented,
e.g., to meet different power
consumption, cost, area, and
performance goals.
• When a software is written to IBM System/360
conform with an architecture Source of photo: Erik Pitti, CC-BY-2.0

specification, it can be portable.

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Computer Architecture

• Computer architecture is much more than the task of defining the

instruction-set or high-level architecture.
• The computer architect must contribute to, and understand, all levels of
design in order to deliver the most appropriate design for a particular
application and target market.
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Computer Architecture
• Computer architecture is concerned with how best to exploit fabrication
technology to meet marketplace demands.
• e.g., how best might we use five billion transistors and a power budget of two
watts to design the chip at the heart of a cell phone?
• Computer architecture builds on a few simple concepts but is challenging
as we must constantly seek new solutions.
• What constitutes the “best” design changes over time and depending on
our use-case. It involves considering many different trade-offs.
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Computer Architecture
• Each level of design imposes different
requirements and constraints, which change
over time. Markets
• History and economics: there is commercial Applications
pressure to evolve in a way that minimizes Operating Systems
disruption and possible costs to the Programming languages and
ecosystem (e.g., software). compilers
• There is also a need to look forward and not Architecture
design for yesterday’s technology and Microarchitecture
workloads! Hardware
• Design decisions should be carefully justified Fabrication Technology
through experimentation.
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The Computer Architecture Arena

Computer
architecture
Application
characteristics
Markets

New
applications

Technology

Source: “Early 21st Century Processors,” S. Vajapeyam and M. Valero, IEEE Computer, April 2004
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Design Goals I

• Functional – hard to correct (unlike software). Verification is perhaps the

highest single cost in the design process. We also need to test our chips
once they have been manufactured, again this can be a costly process
and requires careful thought at the design stage
• Performance – what does this mean? No single best answer, e.g., sports
car vs. off-road 4x4 vehicle – performance will always depend on the
“workload”
• Power – a first-order design constraint for most designs today. Power
limits the performance of most systems.
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Design Goals II

• Security – e.g., the ability to control access to sensitive data or prevent

carefully crafted malicious inputs from hijacking control of the processor
• Cost – design cost (complexity), die costs (i.e., the size or area of our
chip), packaging, etc.
• Reliability – do we need to try to detect and/or tolerate faults during
operation?
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ARM (What & Why)

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Arm1: The First Arm Processor (1985)

• Arm: Advanced RISC Machine (Arm)
• The first Arm processor was designed by Sophie Wilson and Prof. Steve
Furber. It was inspired by early research papers from Berkeley and
Stanford on RISC.
• Arm1
• 25,000 transistors
• 3-stage pipeline
• 8 MHz clock
• No on-chip cache

Prof. Steve Furber (left)1 and Sophie Wilson (right)2

1.By Peter Howkins, CC BY-SA 3.0
2.By Chris Monk, CC BY-SA-2.0
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Why ARM processor

In 2010 alone, 6.1 billion ARM-based processor,

representing 95% of smartphones, 35% of digital
televisions and set-top boxes and 10% of mobile
computers

As of 2019, 150 billion ARM processors have been

produced
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Apple M1, M2, M1 Max, M1 Pro

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iPhone 11

A13 Bionic:
• 64-bit system on chip (SoC)
• 6 ARMv8.3-A cores
• Introduced on Sept. 10, 2019

ifixit.com
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Amazon Echo (Alexa)

• Texas
Instruments
DM3725 Digital
Media Processor
• ARM Cortex-A8
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Kindle HD Fire

Texas Instruments
OMAP 4460 dual-
core processor

http://www.ifixit.com
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Fitbit Flex Teardown

STMicroelectronics 32L151C6
Ultra Low Power ARM Cortex
M3 Microcontroller

Nordic Semiconductor
nRF8001 Bluetooth Low
Energy Connectivity IC

www.ifixit.com
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Samsung Galaxy Gear

• STMicroelectronics
STM32F401B ARM-
Cortex M4 MCU with
128KB Flash
source: ifixit.com
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Pebble Smartwatch

source: ifixit.com

• STMicroelectronics STM32F205RE ARM

Cortex-M3 MCU, with a maximum speed of
120 MHz
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Oculus VR

• Facebook’s $2 Billion Acquisition Of Oculus in 2014 source: ifixit.com

• ST Microelectronics STM32F072VB ARM Cortex-M0 32-bit RISC Core

Microcontroller
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HTC Vive

STMicroelectronics
32F072R8 ARM Cortex-M0
Microcontroller

source: ifixit.com
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Nest Learning Thermostat

source: ifixit.com

• ST Microelectronics STM32L151VB ultra-low-power 32 MHz ARM

Cortex-M3 MCU
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Samsung Gear Fit Fitness Tracker

source: ifixit.com

• STMicroelectronics STM32F439ZI 180 MHz,

32 bit ARM Cortex-M4 CPU
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History
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ARM Processors
• ARM Cortex-A family:
– Applications processors
– Support OS and high-performance applications
– Such as Smartphones, Smart TV

• ARM Cortex-R family:

– Real-time processors with high performance and high reliability
– Support real-time processing and mission-critical control

• ARM Cortex-M family:

– Microcontroller
– Cost-sensitive, support SoC
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ARM Processors
Cortex-A57
Cortex-A53

Cortex-A15
Cortex-A9 Cortex-A
Cortex-A8
Cortex-A7
Cortex-A5

Cortex-R7
Cortex-R5
Cortex-R4
Cortex-R
Cortex-M4
Cortex-M3
Cortex-M1
Cortex-M0+
Cortex-M
Cortex-M0

SC000
SC100
SC300
SecurCore
ARM11
ARM9
ARM7
Classic
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The Smartphone
Camera
CORTEX-M Sensor hub
• A single smartphone will Touchscreen & CORTEX-M
Power
management
contain many different sensor hub
CORTEX-M
processor cores. CORTEX-A
CORTEX-M

Apps processor Flash controller

• Why not use a single CORTEX-A
CORTEX-M
processor? CORTEX-M

GPS
2G/3G/4G/5G CORTEX-M
CORTEX-A
CORTEX-R
CORTEX-M Bluetooth
CORTEX-M
Wi-Fi
CORTEX-R
CORTEX-M
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Questions?