Systems Architecture Flashcards
What does the CPU do?
It fetches and processes instructions
What does FDE stand for?
Fetch Decode Execute
What does CPU stand for?
Central Processing Unit
What are the main components of the CPU?
Control Unit (CU)
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
Registers
Cache
What are registers?
Small fast memory locations
What does a Program Counter (PC) do?
Holds the address of the next instruction to be fetched
What does a Memory Address Register (MAR) do?
Stores the address of a function being fetched
What does a Memory Data Register (MDR) do?
Stores the data that has been fetched to be stored in memory
What does an Accumulator (ACC) do?
Stores the result of an instruction/ calculation
What does the Control Unit (CU) do?
It controls and co-ordinates all of the activities taken place in the CPU
- Decodes and executes instructions
- Receives signals from the system clock
What does the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) do?
It’s where the arithmetic and logical calculations are done
What is cache?
It temporarily stores frequency used data
Why is cache faster?
It’s closer to the CPU than RAM which provides data and instructions faster
What is clock speed?
It’s the measure of how fast the CPU can process instructions
What is clock speed measured in?
Gigahertz (GHz)
