Learning Computer Architecture with Raspberry Pi

Chapter 4

ARM Processors and Systems-on-a-Chip

THIS CHAPTER IS about central processing units (CPUs), the beating hearts at the centre of all computers. A great deal of what people call “computer architecture” is the inner structure of the CPU. More specifically, this chapter is about the Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) processors, especially the ARM11 microarchitecture used in the original Raspberry Pi.

The focus on the ARM11 microprocessor architecture leads to a secondary topic in this chapter: system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices, which include not only an ARM CPU but also a graphics processor, a mass-storage controller for SD card access, a serial port controller and several other subsystems that have often been implemented as separate chips or chip sets outside the CPU.

The Incredible Shrinking CPU

Early computers were enormous because they had to be; at first, digital logic was based on high-reliability versions of what were essentially radio tubes, each of which was the size of your thumb. Whole rooms in specially engineered buildings were needed to house, power and cool thousands of radio tubes. Imagine a building the size of a modern server farm—which today would house rack upon rack of multicore blade servers—containing a single CPU.

The arrival of commercially manufactured transistors in 1955 ushered in the second generation of CPUs. The new developments meant that what had previously filled whole rooms could now be contained in three or four cabinets the size of refrigerators. ...