Template talk:Processor technologies

message: What is the difference between System-on-a-chip and Microcontroller? Should both be included in this template? --Kubanczyk 17:17, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  SoC and Microcontroller 

message: "microarchitecture" should be "architecture" and "pipelining" should be "parallelism".
micro-architecure refers to the electronic circuitry, not the logical organization.  architecture is the word for logical organization.
and most of the items in the "pipelining" category have nothing to do with pipelines, but are rather parallelism/concurruncy features, most of which are orthogonal to pipelines.  (orthogonal meaning they can be used with or without pipelines, and pipelines can be used with or without them.)  Kevin Baastalk 16:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed them. Kevin Baastalk 17:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  incorrect category names 

message: I think this template has grown too much as of late, branching out in highly periferal topics, like software, packaging and examples withing sub categories. I don't think this should be an be all, end all template encompassing everything relating to CPU technologies. It's quite a large topic and this template is not benefiting by this "feature creep". Keep the larger issues, skip the periferaltopics, and the subtopics. -- Henriok (talk) 19:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creep 

message: I am a bit confused about the categorization of entries in this template after it was edited by User:Ramu50 so I reverted it. It may have been confusing before, but is has become more confusing afterwards. There are too many "I don't even know where that came from(s)" to list here as justification, but here are two of them:
* MCM (multi chip module) and DCM (dual chip module) categorized in microarchitecture? Microarchitecture? These are packaging styles! Rilak (talk) 09:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverted 

message: I think it would be beneficial if this template stayed on-topic, so I have identified entries that I believe should be removed instead of removing it straight away because of the concerns of one editor. These entries are:
* Move "Microcontroller" and "SoC" to "Types" as they are not components. A "microcontroller" is a simple CPU for simple applications such as controlling a toaster. CPUs are not constructed out of microcontrollers so I fail to see how it can be categorized in "Components". A "SoC" is also a type of CPU containing the majority of the system either on-die or on-chip, it is not a component, CPUs are not constructed out of SoCs.
* Remove "FPGA", "ASIC" and "Logic Device" (which links to "PAL") as these are semiconductor technologies and integrated circuit types. CPUs might be built from these, but you don't see "Silicon Die" listed in this template, even though it is more obvious than these two entries. "FPGA", "ASIC" and "PAL" are not strictly CPU technologies anyway, and neither is "Silicon Die", if anyone reads this and thinks it should be added.
* Move "ASIP" to "Types" as it is a type of processor, the term stands for "Application-Specific Instruction-set Processor" anyway so it should have been very obvious. You don't see CPUs built from ASIPs do you?
* Remove "Multiprocessing" as how a technique or an architecture (depending on how you look at it) can be categorized as a "component" is beyond any comprehension.
* Remove "MCM" and "DCM" as these are packaging technologies used by many things other than CPUs. You don't see entries such as DIP, PGA or Flip-chip here do you? That's because they are also packaging technologies used by many other things than CPUs.
* Remove "APM", "APCI" and "DPMS". These are all used by computers, and while they might (I didn't bother to check through the five hundred pages or so specifications for these standards) be used by microprocessors, it is irrelevant anyways as they were designed for computer power management rather than exclusively or 90% for microprocessors. Why "DPMS" is included is actually beyond comprehension as it stands for "VESA Display Power Management Signaling". In other words it is for computer displays, a subject that is very distant from CPUs (unless you think the display is the CPU. If you did, the boxy thing beside the display is also not the CPU.
* Remove entire "Parallelism|Types" as it consists of "Distributed computing", "Grid computing" and "Cloud computing" as they are are all system architectures.
* Remove "Task parallelism" as it is programming concept rather than a CPU technology.
* Move "Parallelism|Threads" into "Parallelism|Level" as "thread-level parallelism" is a level of parallelism and the entries in "Parallelism|Threads" are implementations or sub-types of "thread-level parallelism". You don't see "pipelining" as its own category as it is a implementation to exploit "instruction-level parallelism", which is an entry in "Parallelism|Level" as "Instruction".
* Remove "Parallelism|Logic" and its only entry, "Bitwise operation" as they are logic operations and the link to parallelism is either non-existent or extremely weak.
After these entries have been moved to better categorized or removed, I will once again review the template to ensure that everything is where it should be and that anything that should not be in the template will be nominated for removal, until this template it right. What does everyone think of this proposal?
With all this removal of entries, I think it should be balanced with the adding of entries. Why not add entries for "things" that CPUs and microprocessors are actually "made" of into the "Components" section such as Adder (electronics), Adder-subtracter, Binary multiplier and Multiplication ALU?
Finally, I think the template should be renamed. It is clear that the title has potential for confusion as it covers a topic that is too vast and it encourages adding every single technology invented that is used by CPUs regardless of whether it is theoretical, experimental, rare, one-of-a-kind, etc. Rilak (talk) 08:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad categorizations? 

message: Lambda Calculus is used in Texas Instruments ASIC for military specific applications
--Ramu50 (talk) 20:29, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this is a completely specious point. This is another example of feature creep. It is not the purpose of a cross-reference template like this to include everything that anyone ever heard of that can possibly be related to the template topic. I think that anyone coming into this template hoping to learn about CPU technologies and clicking on the "Lambda calculus" link would end up more confused than before, particularly as that article does not mention CPUs or processors in any way and does not even include this template. And no, the right answer is not to edit the "Lambda calculus" article to "fix" these problems (they are not problems). Jeh (talk) 03:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear hear -- Henriok (talk) 09:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lambda Calculus 

message: These are very definitely technologies used in CPUs. Mux'ing is commonly used to allow one bus to carry several different signals. For example, the same set of pins out of the CPU can carry "address" bits at one moment and "data" bits at another. This is widely used in many CPU buses. It's also used inside CPUs. same reason. Just because you have found the concepts associated with ADC and DAC doesn't mean that's the only thing to which they apply. Removing this from the template "because it's used with DACs" is another example of "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing." Jeh (talk) 18:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering should we create another template. Because technologies like Multiplexing, Multipliers...etc are very electrical engineering centric than the CPU. --Ramu50 (talk) 18:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  What do you think CPUs are made of, if not logic elements? "CPU technologies" are all about EE, EE at the "digital logic design" level at any rate. Now if we had some links to articles like Transmission line theory, which is used in e.g. chip layout, I'd agree that that's too far into the EE side of things. Jeh (talk) 18:52, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I previously suggested adding some real "components" to the template, such as adder. Is this within the intended scope of the template? Rilak (talk) 09:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Isn't "multiplier" already there? Then I think "adder" certainly should be. Things like NAND gates, flip-flops, etc., I don't think so. Jeh (talk) 16:22, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is "multiplier" already there? No, I don't think it is. I agree with your second point. I will probably add stuff like "adder" when I have the time. Rilak (talk) 08:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mulltiplexer/Demultiplexer 

message: Should we create a subsection under Architecture named "Bitness"? -- Henriok (talk) 10:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bitness 

message: I greatly expanded the bit sizes - a few list articles would help?, simplified row headings - I left the old structure of subcats but that should probably be removed. More details on the Russian computers would help, anyone? Widefox (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that parallel technologies dominate, there's gaping topic omissions in the template like multicore. Instead of further duplication with Template:Parallel computing, which way forward do you favour? (note there's much discussion above) Widefox (talk) 09:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update 

message: Currently, that section has:
* some currently developed-and-sold architectures - x86, z/Architecture, ARM (which actually has 3 ISAs, but I digress...), MIPS, Power Architecture/PowerPC (the ISA is, I think, called "Power ISA", which is basically a new name for the PowerPC ISA), SPARC, SuperH, MicroBlaze, and Unicore (?);
* a currently-sold-but-probably-not-going-to-be-developed-further architecture - Itanium;
* a still-under-development architecture - Mill;
* a redlink - VISC;
* some formerly-but-no-longer-developed-or-sold architectures - VAX, PA-RISC, Alpha, Clipper;
* a never-made-into-a-product architecture - DEC Prism;
and doesn't have other formerly-but-no-longer-developed-or-sold architectures such as PDP-11 and doesn't have some once-significant and possibly still available architectures 68k/ColdFire.
So which ones should be listed? Guy Harris (talk) 19:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: In my opinion, none. This template has a scope that is so broad and unspecific, it has encouraged the arbitrary inclusion and exclusion of topics. Which architectures should be included is a symptom of this more general problem. This template should be split into several more specific templates for easier navigation between strongly interrelated articles. 50504F (talk) 04:48, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which ISAs belong in the "Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)" section? 

message: This navbox contained multiple red links (fixed), and lots of pages not using this navbox, I only removed one (nested Artificial neural network spam) part, please check all other links. –84.46.53.157 (talk) 06:15, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam 

message: , most of these technologies are broadly applicable to different kinds of processors. I think it might be better to rename the template "Processor technologies". --Daviddwd (talk) 16:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible rename to Processor technologies? 

message: Here's a list of articles listed under different categories that do not actually correspond to those categories. I propose we remove them from the template, or at least move them to different categories.
I think these could be removed.
-- Daviddwd (talk) 16:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Things that are not processor technologies