System Architecture

System Architecture

1. CPU

   • Processor Speed
     • This is measured usually with units of MHz and GHz
       • 1GHz Processor executes 1 Billion Instructions per second 2GHz Processor executes 2 Billion Instructions Per Second
   • Cores
     • Processors can be multi-core Dual Core Quad Core 8 Core
     • Each core executes instructions independently. Dual Core may execute up to twice as many instructions per second
   • Cache
     • This is very fast, and usually a very small amount of volatile memory on the processor chip
     • Cache acts as an intermediary between the processor and the Main Memory
     • As programs are executing – the Cache holds commonly used instructions
   • Performance
     • Clock Speed
       • Doubling the clock speed will double the number of instructions executed per second
     • Cores
       • Quadrupling the number of cores may quadruple the number of instructions executed per second
     • Cache Size
       • Increasing the cache size will reduce the number of memory to disk transfers and thus may speed up processing of these instructions

2. Embedded Systems

   • A computer System that is made up of both Hardware and Software (Firmware)
   • Usually for very specialised tasks. Doesn’t usually contain an Operating System
   • Dishwasher, coffee machine, mp3 player etc

3. Topologies

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