Arthur Nieuwoudt
ELEC 527
1/17/2007
Assignment: If all of the computers in the world suddenly vanished, how long would it take to
realize a processor with the complexity of the Intel Core Duo?
Given the pervasiveness of computers and computing applications in society, the scope and underlying
assumptions must be stated in order to answer this question. Computers, or more precisely,
microprocessors, are a vital part of many important applications including automobiles, communication
(wireless and land-based), and household appliances/electronics. Furthermore, the world’s financial
markets and banks rely upon computers to execute trades and to store and catalog the wealth of millions
of people. If all of the world’s microprocessors were destroyed, the ensuing chaos and substantial
decrease in productivity from society as a whole would have dire consequences that would most likely
take decades to resolve. While the implications of these consequences would undoubtedly have a large
impact on the re-development of today’s state-of-the-art processors, these considerations are beyond the
scope of this paper. Therefore, the following underlying assumptions are made to determine how long it
would take to realize a processor with the complexity of the Intel Core Duo:
1. Only the computers and software tools associated with the design of future processors are no longer
available. The rest of the world’s microprocessors (for communications, cars, personal productivity in
businesses, etc.) are in working order. However, these microprocessors cannot be cannibalized for use in
designing future computer systems (presumably [and perhaps unrealistically] since they are needed
elsewhere).
2. All of the knowledge in computer design accumulated up to this point is available in books and other
non-electronic formats. Operating systems and other basic types of software are available, but all EDA
tools have been destroyed.
3. The personnel (226,000 employees) and resources (27.5 billion dollars in capital equipment and R&D
expenditures) of the U.S. semiconductor industry remain at their 2005 levels [1]. Despite the sharp
decrease in revenue, the industry would probably be heavily subsidized by the government given the
importance of the development of replacement processors.
Based on the aforementioned assumptions, re-developing a processor with the complexity of the Intel
Core Duo (~200M transistors [2]) would require the re-implementation of the plethora of CAD tools for
automated design, performance simulation, design verification, and semiconductor manufacturing. These
CAD tools require a computing platform on which to run. Therefore, the development of sophisticated
processors requires an incremental process where processors are developed, and then more sophisticated
CAD tools are developed in order to design more complex processors. In today’s semiconductor
industry, this is the cyclical process that naturally occurs within the industry as processor technology
advances.
The first microprocessor would have to be developed without the aid of EDA tools. This initial processor
would have to be sophisticated enough to support basic CAD tools for designing the next generation chip.
Assuming that a designer can produce approximately 100 transistors per month without the use of EDA
tools based on the engineering productivity in 1981 and that approximately 400 designers can be utilized
to develop a single design without substantial diminishing returns (as demonstrated by the development
of the Cell microprocessor) [2], a processor with approximately 500,000 transistors could be realized in
one year. This is roughly equivalent to a 386 processor [3], which was Intel’s state-of-the-art processor
from 1985 through 1989. Given the resources available to the semiconductor industry (item #3 in the
assumptions above), the additional computer hardware (board-level hardware and other micro-controllers)
required to realize a full computer system could be developed simultaneously. Sufficient computer
control of manufacturing technology could probably also be brought up to a sufficient level in the same
period of time. Given the level of manual system integration and testing required, developing the final
version of the first “replacement” computer system (equivalent to a 386) would probably take a total of
two years (1 year for processor/computer system development and 1 year for system integration and
testing).
Once the first computer system is developed, then EDA tools would need to be created to enable the
development of the next generation of processors. On a 386-type processor, CAD tools with the
complexity of Windows 3.1, which has approximately 3 million source lines of code (SLOCs) [4], could
conceivably be developed. With an average of 10-15 SLOCs per programmer per day in the early 1990s
[5], a development team of 400 programmers could create a particular CAD tool in approximately two
years. Given the resources available to the semiconductor industry, a whole suite of CAD tools could be
simultaneously developed.
While the suite of CAD tools is being developed, a team of hardware designers could also be developing
the next generation processor at the pre-EDA rate of 100 transistors per month, which could result in 1
million transistors designed in the two year EDA tool development period. Once the EDA tools became
available, productivity should increase to approximately 1000 transistors per month per designer (late
1980’s productivity level in [3]), which would result in a design with a total of 6 million transistors after
an additional year. Therefore, the total development time for this processor would be three years (two
years while the initial set of EDA tools is being developed and an additional year afterward). This would
provide the equivalent computing power of an Intel Pentium 2, which was released in 1997 [3]. Once a
set of EDA tools are developed for this generation processor, which based on the previous set of
assumptions, would take about two years, design productivity should increase by another order of
magnitude to approximately 10000 transistors per month per designer (late 1990’s productivity level in
[3]). Given two years at 1000 transistors per month per designer (while a new set of EDA tools are
developed) and four years at 10000 transistors per month per designer, the 200M transistor Core Duo
processor could be designed assuming a design team of 400 people. Re-using components from previous
designs could reduce the time required. Based on the analysis above, the total time spent to design a
processor as complex as the Core Duo assuming that all of the computers in the world suddenly vanished
(with the assumptions outlined above) is approximately 11 years.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
Semiconductor Industry Association, “Industry Facts & Figures,” http://www.siaonline.org/ind_facts.cfm, 2007.
L.
Zhong,
“Computing
Design
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and
Challenges,”
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~mobile/elec527/lectures/2-computingdesignflow.ppt, January 2007.
Intel
Corporation,
“Intel
Microprocessor
Transistor
Count
Chart,”
http://www.intel.com/museum/archives/history_docs/mooreslaw.htm
and
ftp://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Images_Assets/Transistor_Count_bar_chart_jpg.
zip, 2007.
David A. Wheeler, “More Than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux's Size,”
http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/redhat71-v1/redhat71sloc.html, July 2002.
R.
S.
Alessi,
“System
Engineering
Case
Study:
A
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Whole-Farm
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http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/1994/04/xt94d04e.asp, 2007.