The document outlines the historical development of computer technology from 1978 to 2014, highlighting the evolution of personal computers, processor speeds, memory types, and storage technologies. It emphasizes the impact of solid-state drives (SSDs) on architecture, performance, and market trends, predicting a shift away from traditional hard drives. The conclusion suggests significant changes in software development, focusing on multi-core processing and the potential for real-time applications as technology advances.

1. Technology Impact on
Computers
24 September 2014
Francis Thompson

2. Computer History
• 1978 – Apple II established the personal computer architecture (really simplified)
• Not changed in basic structure even today
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Control
Unit
CPU
Arithmetic
Logic Unit
Cache
Persistent
Memory
Volatile
Memory
Architecture has not changed much since 1980
H/D
DVD
Tape
Display
I/O
devices
Essentially a Von Neumann
Machine
IBM entered
market
Dell entered
market
HP first
PC

3. Changes since 1978
• Processor Speed
– 1MHz, 5MHz, 20MHz, 33MHz, 66MHz, 120MHz, 500MHz, 1GHz, 3.2GHz
– Why not higher? (speed of light and memory bottle necks)
– memory access – 8bit (256), 16bit (65K), 32bit (4B), 64bit (18^18), 128bit (340^36)
• Processor Cores
– 70s, 80s, 90s – single cores
– Dual core – 2004/5, quad-core – 2006, today – 18 core Xenon (this year)
• Volatile Memory (RAM)
– 48K, 1M, 16M, 32M, 64M, 512M, 1G, 4G, 8G, 16G, 64G, 128G sim modules
– Interfaces with the SIMs improved (large bandwidth)
• Long Term Storage
– Floppy Drives – 140K, 180K, 360K, 1.2M
– H/D – 5M, 10M, 100M, 1G, 20G, 60G, 512G, 1T, 3T
– H/D – spin – 5K, 7K, 10K, 15K RPM gave faster access time.
– CDs/DVDs/double sided
– Thumb drives/SSD
• Displays
– CRT – 9in, 11in, 15in, 18in, 21in, 24in, etc.
– Flat screens vs CRTs – slow : fast response; low : high contrast; Low : High resolution
– 2006 ~CRT had 76% world market
– By 2012, could not buy CRTs in stores
Very little changed in physical architecture because of these changes
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4. S/W implementation changed but not architecture
Code size considerations
• 80s – used Boolean Algebra to reduce code to fit in memory
• 2000 – No longer really care about code size
Processing in memory
• 80s used to swap between long term and volatile
• 2000 – Work hard to live in the 16G or 32G volatile memory window per
processor
Code Distribution
• Floppy, 3.5in floppy, CD, DVD, Internet
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S/W development changed a lot in the 80s and 90s; Architecture did
not change

5. What drove the flat screen change
• In 6 years, 2006 – 2012 CRTs were not sold commercially
• Margin (difference in recurring cost vs. sales)
– Flat screens were in the 40 – 60% margin
– CRTs were in the 2 – 4% margin
• Smaller foot print
• Weight
• Lower Power
• Eventually performance was equal to CRT
• No real impact to either hardware or software architecture
– Did get much larger screens (so some display changes)
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6. Changes affecting Architecture
SSD (flash based – NAND) will impact architecture
SSDs 77g vs spinning drives 752g (1/10 the weight)
SSDs 1.7 watts vs spinning drives 6.4 watts (1/4 power)
Speed of access – NAND can access at 100s nano seconds, spinning drives at milli sec.
• Three technologies, in the fall 2013, predicted 2 – 3 years to market
– Controllers: Most SSD controllers were reconfigured H/D controllers – Need new ones
• Limited access time (typically millisecond) by design
• SSDs could have up to nanosecond time
– Would degrade over time with read/write – Need significant more reliability
• SSDs were designed with limited Program-Erase cycles (PE cycles)
• H/D magnetic zones degrade with time, physical collision with head, and
mechanical actuators wear out, but do not “wear out” with multiple writes,.
– Bandwidth is severely limited with PCI at 6GB/sec – Need bigger bandwidth
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7. SSDs now since 2013 Fall
The three major limitations are now in commercial offerings under $300
• Controllers: NVMe controllers
– Available in several vendors product this year (much sooner than 2-3yrs)
– Controllers no longer limited by the H/D millisecond access time
– Controllers can use internal data paths of 128bits and 256bits
• New NAND flash drives have 5 – 10 year warrantees
– Much longer than hard drives (typical H/D is 3 – 4 years)
– SSDs are designed with either Single Level Cells (SLC) or Multi-Level Cells (MLC). New SSDs are designed
with Enterprise-Grade MLC (E-MLC) and do not degrade over warrantee period
• Tom’s Hardware provides reviews of these devices
• PCIe new standard significantly improves Bandwidth
– PCIe standard established in this year. Up to 16 PCI busses in parallel (16 X 6GB/sec = 96GB/sec).
– 1000sX faster than H/D
– Downstream Port Containment (DPC extension) improves reliability
– M.2 form factor accommodates the PCIe standards
– PLX’s ExpressFabric extension allows for outside the box connections using new PCIe standards
– OCuLink and SRIS cables will connect SSDs to other racks with the new PCIe standards
• Margin for SSDs is 60 - 80% margin
– Prices have been falling by 50% every 2 – 4 months
– Competition is very stiff and growing (1TeraByte SSD is now ~$300)
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These changes took 2 months, not 2-3 years as predicted in Aug 2013

8. SSD memory impact to architecture
• Expect SSD speed will approach that of RAM in next 12 months
• SSD production margin is at ~60 - 80% right now with significant room to go lower
• Prices will continue to drop in the next 12 months (much lower $/GB than H/D)
• SSDs don’t break with impact, SSDs last longer than H/D
• Predict H/D will cease manufacturing very soon
– 15K RPM hard drives have stopped production (Jan 15th last production date)
– HP and NetApps have migration path to SSDs with existing S/W
• New software and networking infrastructure
– SSD will replace all H/D in mass storage – Power, Speed, Reliability, and Weight
– Samsung sold or abandoned all their H/D manufacturing
– Western Digital and Seagate ramping down H/D production in 2014
– New Apple Mac only comes with SSD
• If SSDs take over as flat screens did, cannot buy spinning drives
• Memory will become all one memory – flash, cache, volatile, storage
• What would you change if all your programs ran in RAM? Worlds data in RAM?
• Swap files are no longer a bottleneck
• Java could be considered real time
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9. Cores per processor and GPUs
• Intel 18 core Xeon E5 chip and AMD
16 core Opteron - now
• GPU chips (i.e. NVIDA 2,880 cores)
now use Heterogeneous System
Architecture (HAS) framework
• Intel plans in 2015 release of the
Xeon Phi chip – excess of 60 cores
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• In the 22 – nanometer process – cores could be 1024
• Virtual computing is moving into the consumer market
• Commercial S/W applications are multi-threaded

10. Conclusions
• Software will no longer be concerned with data access or swap files
between RAM and Persistent memory
• Multiple cores per die, mean that we will have 1000s of cores to
operate on common memory
• Software that at one time was non-real time, now becomes real time
– Interpreted languages and compiled code are essentially the same
– Language agnostic software will be the norm
• Size, power, and weight will drive to extremely small devices with
server capability
• Server farms will be affected by power, cooling, size changes
• Our Universities are graduating students that have learned the old
software architecture
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