1.3.2 Computer Architecture Flashcards
What are the 5 registers used in the Von Neumann architecture?
- Program counter (PC)
- Memory address register (MAR)
- Memory data register (MDR)
- Current instruction register (CIR)
- Accumulator (ACC)
What is the purpose of the ALU?
Arithmetic Logic Unit
- Carries out calculations on data e.g.
- arithmetic operations: add, subtract …
- logical operations: AND, OR …
- Holds temporary values used during calculations …
- .. in a register called the accumulator (ACC)
What is the purpose of the Control Unit (CU)?
Control Unit
- It contains the Current Instruction Register (CIR) and the Program Counter (PC).
- Manages the flow of data and interaction between the components of the processor
- Signals are generated along the control bus to tell the components of the computer what to d
- Reads/fetches instructions from memory
What is the IAS?
Immediate Access Store
- Used to hold data and instructions before they are processed e.g. registers, RAM, cache
Purpose of the Program Counter (PC)?
- Contains the address of the next instruction to be fetched
- Increments to point to the address of the next instruction to be fetched
Purpose of the Memory Address Register (MAR)
- Holds the address(location) of the current instruction/data to be fetched
- The contents of the PC are copied here and …
- … then transferred along the Address Bus
Purpose of the Memory Data Register (MDR)?
- Temporary storage between the Central Processing (CPU) and primary memory
- Contains the instructions/data after it is fetched from main memory
Purpose of the Current Instruction Register (CIR)?
- Contains the instructions to be decoded
- It is copied from the MDR
Purpose of the accumalator (ACC)?
Holds data (temporarily) that is currently being used in calculations by the Logic Unit
What are the 3 buses used in the Von Neumann architecture?
- Address bus
- Control bus
- Data bus
What is the purpose of the 3 buses used in the Von Neumann architecture?
- Buses are used to connect together the internal components of the CPU
Purpose of the address bus?
- Transports the memory address …
- … between processor and memory
- … of the next item to be fetched
- Data travels one way (unidirectional) CPU -> Memory
Purpose of the control bus?
- Carries (transports) signals …
- … that control the actions of the CPU
- … that synchronise the fetch-execute cycle
- Data can travel one way (unidirectional) or both ways (bidirectional)
Purpose of the data bus?
- Carries (transports) data …
- … that is currently being processed
- … between processor, memory and peripherals(input/output devices)
- Data travels both ways (bidirectional)
Explain how an instruction is fetched in a computer based on the Von Neumann model
- PC contains the address of the next instruction to be fetched
- The address held in the PC is copied to the MAR … and placed on the address bus
- The instruction is transferred to the MDR from the memory location contained in the MAR … using the data bus
- The instruction in the MDR is copied to the CIR
- The PC is incremented by 1
- The instruction is then decoded and executed by the Control Unit