1.1 System Architecture Flashcards
What does the Control Unit (CU) do?
Executes instructions and controls the flow of data in the CPU
What does the Program Counter do?
Holds the memory address for the instruction of each cycle
What does the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) do?
All the calculations and logic operations
What does the Accumulator do?
Holds the result of any calculations in the ALU
What does the Cache do?
Very fast memory that stores regularly used data so that the CPU can access it quickly
What does the Memory Address Register (MAR) do?
Holds the address about to be used by the CPU
What does the Memory Data Register (MDR) do?
Holds the actual data or instruction being processed by the CPU
What Hardware are apart of the Von Neumann Architecture?
Accumulator, Cache, MAR, MDR
What are Embedded Systems?
Computers built into other devices like washing machines. They are dedicated to a single task so they are efficient
What is Clock Speed?
The number of instructions a processor can carry out per/second. Higher clockspeed = Faster CPU
What does the Number of Cores Equal?
The more cores a CPU has, the more instructions it can carry out at once (Multitasking)
More cores = Faster processing
What does Cache Size affect?
A larger cache gives the CPU faster access to more data
What happens in the Fetch - Decode - Execute Cycle?
CPU fetches instruction from the RAM (copies memory address to MAR, copies instruction to MDR and adds 1 to PC.
CU decodes the instruction from the MDR.
Instruction is executed by the CU.
The next instruction is fetched and the cycle repeats.
What does the CIR do?
Holds the instruction that is currently being decoded and executed.
