CP and Architecture Flashcards
What is the Purpose of the CPU?
The CPU is often known as the ‘brain of the computer’.
What is the CPU’s job?
Its job is to process data. Searching Sorting Calculating decision making.
What is the processor?
Responds to and processors the instructions that ‘drives’ the computer.
What are the 3 main components in the CPU
3 main components:
Control Unit (coordinates all operations carried out by the computer)
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) (performs operations on data)
Registers (Special memory cells within CPU that operate very quickly. All ALU operations take place within registers)
The CPU follows three steps in order to process data. What are they?
It is known as the Fetch - Decode - Execute cycle
Describe the fetch stage of the fetch decode execute cycle.
In this step the CPU fetches some data and instructions from main memory (RAM) and then store them in its own temporary memory called ‘registers’. For this to happen, the CPU uses a piece of hardware path called the ‘address bus’. The address of the next item that the CPU wants is put onto the ‘address bus’. Data from this area then travels from the RAM to the CPU on another piece of hardware called the ‘Data Bus’
What is the decode section?
The decode step is where the CPU understands / works out what the instruction it has just fetched actually means.
The CPU ‘decodes’ the instruction and gets things ready for the next step.
What is the execute section?
The Execute stage is where data processing happens.
Instructions are carried out on the data.
Once a cycle has completed, another begins.
Name the as many busses as you can and their function?
Address Bus
Used to send the address of particular memory location
Data Bus
Data stored in memory location is sent along data bus
Control Bus
Control signals sent along the control bus
What is a bus?
A Bus is a set of parallel wires connecting two or more components of a computer
Processor is connected to main memory using three busses
