Digital integrated circuit technology trends: microprocessors [for avionic application]

The technology treadmill is evolving the microprocessor at a phenomenal rate. Today's microprocessors have millions of transistors, operate at frequencies greater than 100 MHz, use process technologies with feature sizes less than 0.5 microns, and utilize sophisticated architecture techniques to maximize performance. This paper surveys the current technology trends in microprocessors. Topics include advanced architecture techniques such as superscalar, branch prediction, on-chip cache memory and also process technology improvements. Within advanced architecture and process technology there are several possible improvement techniques. Superscalar and branch prediction work in concert to reduce the time that the processor is waiting. Separating data and instruction cache, along with a larger bus size, can reduce the number of required accesses to slower system memory. Functional redundancy check reduces error rates in multiprocessor systems through redundancy. Finally, the steady improvement in process technology reduces chip size, operating voltage and power while simultaneously increasing the computation rate.