Von Neumann Architecture

Von Neumann Architecture

1. Control Unit

   • It controls the flow of data between the CPU and other parts of the computer system.
   • For example, it sends control signals to the memory, ALU and input/output devices.

2. Registers

   • Program Counter
     • Stores the address of the next instruction to be run
   • Accumulator
     • Stores the intermediate results of a calculation
   • Current instruction register
     • Stores the instruction currently being executed
   • Memory Address Register (MAR)
     • Stores the memory address where the data or instruction will be fetched/written.
   • Memory Data Register (MDR)
     • Stores the data or instruction which is being fetched/written from/to memory.

3. Arithmetic Logic Unit

   • The arithmetic logic unit performs all the calculations for the CPU.
     • For example it will perform simple addition and subtraction, binary shifts and logic operations (AND / OR / NOT)

4. Cache

   • Stores frequently used instructions for the CPU.
   • There are 3 different levels of cache. See page 3 of the revision guide for more information.