Intels New Processor Architecture

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Intels New Processor Architecture

• (The High-K gate)

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What we will be covering

• What is a transistor?
• What is Leakage
• Why is the High-K gate so great?
• The Nehalem Project (Core i7s)
• High-K gates
• 45nm technology
• Integration of memory controller

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What is a transistor?

• Does two things
• Acts as switches for digital logic allows them
  to control a strong signal with a weak signal.
• And amplifies the signal
• Critical for cascading logic gates. Without
  amplification we would only be able to send it
  through 3 gates before the signal becomes too
  noisy.
• In the world of digital logic, AND and OR do not
  exist. Only NAND and NOR and NOT do.
• You can create AND and OR by combining NAND and
  NOR and NOT.

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What does a NOT gate look like?

• NOT

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What does NAND look like?

• NAND

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What does NOR look like?

• NOR

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This brings us to leakage

• Example NOT gate.
• Even though A is high (5 V) there is still some
  current to F.
• This ties into thresholds

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New High-K gates

• "High-k" stands for high dielectric constant.
• Old transistors use silicon dioxide to make
  their transistors.
• New High-K transistors use hafnium dioxide for
  their transistors.
• Because high-k gate dielectrics can be several
  times thicker, they reduce gate leakage by over
  100 times compared to old transistors.
• Runs cooler cooler more power.

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Core i7s

• High-K gates allows intel to pack more
  transistors into a die.
• More room for more stuff. Like a memory
  controller.
• Integrate memory controller directly onto the
  processor.
• AMD already has been doing this for 5 years
• Faster transfer time between memory and processor
  now (no more Front Side Bus)
• No more intermediate device.

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What is Front side Bus?
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References

• Intel http//www.intel.com/technology/silicon/hig
  h-k.htm
• Wikipedia http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
  
• Our Book Computer Architecture and Organization
  An Integrated Approach