LO1 - System Architecture:

Question 1

What is the purpose of the CPU?

Answer 1

To fetch instructions, decode instructions, and then execute instructions.

Question 2

What are the four main CPU components?

Answer 2

1) Control Unit (CU),
2) Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU),
3) Registers,
4) Cache Memory.

Question 3

What is the Control Unit within the CPU?

Answer 3

The control unit controls the signals required to coordinate the running of the processor including the movement of data between components and decoding instructions.

Question 4

What is the Arithmetic Logic Unit within the CPU?

Answer 4

The unit is responsible for the calculations and decision making carried out by the CPU.

Question 5

What are the Registers within the CPU?

Answer 5

The registers are the CPU’s own high speed memory store containing several specialised registers, which are at the heart of the heart of the fetch-decode-execute cycle.

Question 6

What is the Cache within the CPU?

Answer 6

The cache is a type of high speed random access memory (RAM) which is built into the CPU processor.

Question 7

What are the five stages of the Von Neumann Architecture?

Answer 7

1) Program Counter (PC),
2) Memory Address Register (MAR),
3) Memory Data Register (MDR),
4) Current Instruction Register (CIR),
5) Accumulator (ACC).

Question 8

What are the characteristics of Cache Memory?

Answer 8

Cache is very high speed.
Built into the structure of the CPU.
Cache data is regularly used data.
CPU Cache has a very low capacity, typically less than 16MB.
Level 1 Cache is the fastest.

Question 9

What is CPU Clock Speed?

Answer 9

The number of clock cycles per second, usually measured in Ghz.

Question 10

What are CPU Cores?

Answer 10

Individual processing units within the CPU which can receive instructions and perform calculations.

Question 11

What is Parallel Processing?

Answer 11

Allows different instructions from the same program to be run at the same time.