This document provides an overview of GPUs (graphic processing units) including their history, types, and recent developments. It discusses how GPUs originated as specialized processors that offloaded graphics rendering from CPUs. The history section outlines the evolution of graphics cards from the early 1980s with just 2-4 colors to modern cards with over 1MB of memory by 1990. Recent developments include Larrabee, a GPU architecture from Intel that uses an x86 instruction set and cache coherency across cores for more flexibility compared to specialized graphics hardware.

1. GPU – Graphic Processing Unit
Hao Yu
Computer Architecture and Design

2. Content
• Instruction
• History
• Different types of GPUs
• Recent Development

3. Instruction
• GPU (graphics processing unit ) is a RISC
specialized processor that offloads 3D
graphics rendering from microprocessor.

4. Instruction
• GPUs are mainly used in embedded
systems, mobile phones, personal
computers, workstations and game
consoles.

5. History of graphics cards
• The first graphics card was developed
by IBM in 1981. The first cards had just
2, 4 or 16 colors. In 1987, the first
graphics card with 256 colors was
released, and in 1990, the first card
with memory over a MB was released by
IBM. All these cards are very low
quality compared to today’s cards

6. • 1970s:
ANTIC and CTIA chips provided for hardware control of mixed
graphics and text modes, sprite positioning and display, and other
operations based on Atari 8-bit computers.
• 1980s:
IBM Professional Graphics Controller was one of the very first 2D/3D
graphics accelerators available for the IBM PC, released in 1984. But
it was expensive, slow and lack of compatibility.

7. History
• 1990s:
S3 Graphics introduced the first single-chip 2D accelerator (S3
86C911); in mid-1990s, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 developed
hardware-accelerated 3D graphics for the requirement of game
market.
• 2000s:
NVIDIA was first to produce a chip capable of programmable
shading, GeForce 3 (NV20); Oct. 2002, ATI Radeon 9700 (R300),
was introduced as the world’s first Direct3D 9.0 accelerator.

8. GPUs
Tseng Labs ET4000/W32p
S3 Graphics ViRGE
3dfx Voodoo3

9. Different types of GPUs
• Dedicated Graphics Card
• Integrated Graphics
• Hybrid Graphics

10. Recent Development – Larrabee

11. Recent Development – Larrabee
• Differences from other GPUs
1. Larrabee will use the x86 instruction set with
Larrabee-specific extensions;
2. Larrabee will feature cache coherency across all
its cores;
3. Larrabee will include little specialized graphics
hardware, by using a tile-based rendering way.
• More flexible

12. How does it work?
• When your PC wants to display
something on your monitor, the CPU
sends information to the graphics card,
which decides how to use the pixels, and
sends the data to the monitor.

13. • The graphics cards can be connected in
many different outputs. The most basic
ones are VGA made in the 1980s. Now
mostly DVI connection is used, and it
has the ability to connect to LCDs.
Graphics card outputs

14. Thanks!