1.1 Systems Archictecture, 1.2 Memory & 1.3 Storage

1.1 Systems Archictecture, 1.2 Memory & 1.3 Storage

1. components

   • ALU
     • Performs logical operations (AND, OR, NOT), Shift operations and Arithmetic operations (+,-, *, / )
   • Control unit
     • Controls activities in the CPU (Such as flow of data between CPU and other parts) and makes FDE cycle happen in correct order
   • Cache
     • Sits between the CPU and RAM. Very fast. Holds frequently used data so that the processor doesn't have to keep going back and forth to the RAM.

2. Registers

   • Accumulator
     • Stores the results of the calculations done by the ALU
   • Program counter
     • Holds the memory address of the instruction for each cycle
   • MDR
     • Holds data or instructions that have been fetched from memory
   • MAR
     • Holds memory address about to be used by the CPU

3. FDE cycle

   • Fetch the instruction
   • Decode the instruction
   • Read the effective address
   • Execute the instruction

4. Von Neumann

   • MAR (Memory Address Register)
   • MDR (Memory Data Register
   • Program Counter
   • Accumulator

5. Characteristics

   • Clock speed
     • Number of instructions that can be carried out in a second (Hz) - These days in Ghz (Billion)
   • Cache size
     • Refers to how many frequently used instructions can be stored in the cache on the CPU.
   • Number of cores
     • How many individual processors (cores) are on a chip. The more cores, the more instructions can be done simultaneously.

6. The CPU

   • Central processing Unit - This processes all of the data and instructions that make a computer system work