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64-Bit Computing

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Computer Seminar Topics

64-Bit Computing

Introduction

The question of why we need 64-bit computing

is often asked but rarely answered in a
satisfactory manner. There are good reasons for
the confusion surrounding the question.That is
why first of all; let's look through the list of users
who need 64 addressing and 64-bit calculations
today: oUsers of CAD, designing systems,
simulators do need RAM over 4 GB. Although
there are ways to avoid this limitation (for
example, Intel PAE), it impacts the
performance. Thus, the Xeon processors
support the 36bit addressing mode where they
can address up to 64GB RAM.
The idea of this support is that the RAM is
divided into segments, and an address consists
of the numbers of segment and locations inside
the segment. This
approach causes almost 30% performance loss in operations with memory. Besides,
programming is much simpler and more convenient for a flat memory model in the 64bit
address space - due to the large address space a location has a simple address processed
at one pass. A lot of design offices use quite expensive workstations on the RISC
processors where the 64bit addressing and large memory sizes are used for a long time
already. oUsers of data bases.
Any big company has a huge data base, and extension of the maximum memory size and
possibility to address data directly in the data base is very costly. Although in the special
modes the 32bit architecture IA32 can address up to 64GB memory, a transition to the flat
memory model in the 64bit space is much more advantageous in terms of speed and ease
of programming. oScientific calculations. Memory size, a flat memory model and no
limitation for processed data are the key factors here. Besides, some algorithms in the 64bit
representation have a much simpler form. oCryptography and safety ensuring applications
get a great benefit from 64bit integer calculations.

The labels "16-bit," "32-bit" or "64-bit,"

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2/6/2011 64-Bit Computing uptu,admissions,b-tec…
The labels "16-bit," "32-bit" or "64-bit," when applied to a microprocessor, characterize
the processor's data stream. Although you may have heard the term "64-bit code," this
designates code that operates on 64-bit data. In more specific terms, the labels "64-bit,"
32-bit," etc. designate the number of bits that each of the processor's general-purpose
registers (GPRs) can hold. So when someone uses the term "64-bit processor," what they
mean is "a processor with GPRs that store 64-bit numbers." And in the same vein, a "64-
bit instruction" is an instruction that operates on 64-bit numbers. In the diagram above
black boxes are code, white boxes are data, and gray boxes are results. The instruction
and code "sizes" are not to be taken literally, since they're intended to convey a general feel
for what it means to "widen" a processor from 32 bits to 64 bits.
Not all the data either in memory, the cache, or the registers is 64-bit data. Rather, the data
sizes are mixed, with 64 bits being the widest. Note that in the 64-bit CPU pictured above,
the width of the code stream has not changed; the same-sized opcode could theoretically
represent an instruction that operates on 32-bit numbers or an instruction that operates on
64-bit numbers, depending on what the opcode's default data size is. On the other hand,
the width of the data stream has doubled. In order to accommodate the wider data stream,
the sizes of the processor's registers and the sizes of the internal data paths that feed those
registers must be doubled.
Now let's take a look at two programming models, one for a 32-bit processor and another
for a 64-bit The registers in the 64-bit CPU pictured above are twice as wide as those in
the 32- bit CPU, but the size of the instruction register (IR) that holds the currently
executing instruction is the same in both processors. Again, the data stream has doubled in
size, but the instruction stream has not. Finally, the program counter (PC) has also doubled
in size.
For the simple processor pictured above, the two types of data that it can process are
integer data and address data. Ultimately, addresses are really just integers that designate a
memory address, so address data is just a special type of integer data. Hence, both data
types are stored in the GPRs and both integer and address calculations are done by the
ALU.Many modern processors support two additional data types: floating-point data and
vector data. Each of these two data types has its own set of registers and its own execution
unit(s).

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