Computer Systems : Computer Structure

Question 1

What are the three main parts of a computer processor and their function

Answer 1

The Arithmetic and Logical Unit which performs calculations

The Control Unit which loads, decoded and executes insructions.

The registers which are small memory location used by the processor.

Question 2

Describe the role of adress and data buses in the fetch execute cycle

Answer 2

The address bus is a unidirectional (1 way) bus. The address bus can carry a momory address from which data can be read or to which data can be written.

The data bus is a bidirectional (2 way) bus. The data bus is used to trnasfer data between the processor and the memory

Question 3

Describe the Fetch-execute cycle for memory read

Answer 3

1. MAR (Memory Adress Register) Sets up the address bus with relevant memory location to be read from.
2. The control unit read line is activated
3. The contents of the address held on the address bus are placed on the data bus
4. The data bus transfers the data from memory to the MDR (Memory Data Register)

Question 4

Describe the Fetch-execute cycle for memory Write

Answer 4

1. MAR (Memory Address Register) sets up the address bus with the relevant memory location to be written to
2. MDR (Memory Data Register) passes the data to be written to the data bus
3. The control unit write line is activated
4. Data bus transfers the data to memory location specified on the address bus

Question 5

What happens to the computer system performance when the width of the data bus is increased

Answer 5

By increasing the data bus from 32-bit to 64-bit, the computer can trnasfer twice as much information at one time. Therfore, incresing the size of the data bus improves the system performance of the computer.

Question 6

What happens to the computer system performance when the number of processors (cores) is increased.

Answer 6

The number of processor cores can imporove the performance of a computer by processing instruction in parallel. CPUs with multile cores have more power to run multiple programs at the same time

Question 7

How does cahce memeory affect computer system performance

Answer 7

Cache memory can store blocks of memeory contents in the faster area of RAM closer to (or on) the processor chip, which can increase the performance. The more cache there is, the more data can be stored closer to the CPU.

Question 8

How does clock speed affect the computer system performance.

Answer 8

Increasing the clock speed of a computer will increase performance, but at the cost of increased power consumption and heat production. Increasing the clock speed means more fetch-executes per clock pulse.