2 Flashcards
How are computers constructed?
Using individual transistors. Which form circuits that enable various operations and logic.
What is current?
Current is the flow of electric charge through a conductor, like a wire, measured in units of amperes (A).
What are transistors made of?
Semiconductor materials that amplify/switch electrical signals and electrical power.
A transistor is equal to…
a switch.
Name three parts of small input signal
Emitter, base, collector
Which are the four types of gates?
AND Gate, OR Gate, NOT Gate, XOR Gate
AND Gate is like…
multiplication.
OR Gate is like…
sum.
The XOR Gate follows…
Boolean Algebra.
For what do we use the Half Adder (HA)?
We use it to handling the carry bit.
Abstraction in Hardware design consists of…
Design more complex devices in terms of logic, not electronics
How we tend to represent the world?
With 8 bit numbers.
What the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) does?
It combines multiple full adders & additional logic circuits to perform arithmetic and logical operations (AND, XOR, OR).
Why we have to use CPU (Central Processing Unit)?
Because ALU’s are no capable of perform multiplication (more than 1 inst.)
What the control unit does?
Receives instructions from memory & controls the flow of data within CPU. Also, interprets opcode.
What is RAM?
Random Access Memory. Is the computer’s temporary workspace.
Registers are
temporary storage units within the CPU that hold data during processing
What RAM does?
Stores data & instructions that the CPU accesses during execution.
What would happen if you ran out of RAM?
The device would start to run really slowly.
Your programs wouldn’t be able to run.
What would happen if you ran out of permanent storage?
Your computer would no longer be able to permanently store any of its files, you would no longer be able to save any work.
What is the instruction set?
Collections of binary-coded instructions with specific operations like arithmetic, memory access, and control flow. That a computer’s CPU can execute.
Which are the two main types of instruction sets?
RISC: with simple instructions for faster execution.
CISC: with more complex instructions to reduce program size.
Different processors use specific instruction sets…
optimized for various applications and performance requirements.
What is Machine Language?
Binary instructions that CPU can directly execute.
It’s very difficult for humans to work with machine code. What do we do?
Use abstraction. High level-programming languages like Java, C++…
What Moore’s Law says?
The number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years.
How do we calculate the factor by which a computer’s power has increased based on Moore’s Law?
Determine the number of two-years periods in x years (x years/2 years/period = y periods)
Since the power doubles every period, the increase is 2^y
Name the parts of the computer (hardware)
CPU
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
Motherboard
Power Supply (PSU)
CPU Cooler
What is CPU?
Computer’s brain.
What is GPU?
Brain of computers graphics capabilities.
What is the motherboard?
Large printed circuit board with numerous wires & various microchips, components, sockets, ports, slots, headers & connectors.
There are memory channels in the motherboard, what do they allow?
They allow the CPU to communicate directly with DRAM.
What are SSDs?
Solid-state drive. It stores data permanently.
What’s a bit?
Smallest unit of storage.
8 bits form a…
Byte
How many different patterns can I form with 3 bits?
8 patterns
How many different patterns can I form with 9 bits?
2^9 patterns
How many patterns can I form with 1 Byte?
256 patterns
Name all “types” of bytes and corresponding number of bytes of each.
KB (1 thousand bytes)
MG (1 million bytes)
GB (1 billion bytes)
TB (1 trillion bytes)
What is ASCII?
Is an enconding representing each typed character by a number. (Each number is stored in one byte)
What is Unicode?
Is an enconding for mandarin, greek, arabic, etc. languages, typically 2-bytes per character.
What happens if you carry to the leftmost bit?
Changes the numbers from positive to negative!
What is a Gigaherz?
Is speed! (1 billion cycles per second)
