Computer Architecture

The processor is the main computing unit of any computer. The processor is a digital circuit made of a silicon chip that performs computation within a fraction of a second. The speed of a processor is measured in terms of megahertz (MHz). The term processor is often used interchangeably with the term CPU, i.e. central processing unit. Although the CPU is not the only … [Read more...] about Types of Processors

Array processor in computer architecture has multiple arithmetic logic units that enhance the system's performance. Majorly there are two types of array processors available: Attached Array Processor SIMD Array Processor The array processor is one of the approaches to parallel computers. What is Parallel Computer? A parallel computer has multiple processing … [Read more...] about Array Processor in Computer Architecture

Assembly language in a computer is a low-level programming language. The assembly language (ASM) is close to hardware and has direct control over it. But it is far different from machine language. ASM is easily readable by humans. ASM programs are processed by an assembler and converted to machine language. The ASM program consists of a sequence of statements, each … [Read more...] about Assembly Language in Computer

Control signals regulate the operations and coordination of all processor components while executing the instructions. It is the control unit of the CPU, which is responsible for generating control signals. If we divide the instruction cycle into two phases, it would be the fetch phase and the execution phase. Even the processor’s hardware is divided into two sections. The … [Read more...] about Control Signals in Computer Architecture

Memory hierarchy describes how the computer organizes the memory devices based on their speed, size and cost per bit. The various memory devices we use to design a system are registers, cache memory, main memory, and magnetic disks. All these memories operate at different speeds and have different costs per bit. Why Memory Hierarchy? How much memory (size) of each kind will … [Read more...] about Memory Hierarchy in Computer Architecture

A hardwired control unit is a control unit designed using hardware components such as logic gates, flip-flops, decoders etc. Well, there are two ways to design any control unit, it can be designed using hardwired control or using microprogrammed control. Both hardwired and microprogrammed control unit are implemented to generate the control signals required to fetch and … [Read more...] about Hardwired Control Unit

The number system we use in computers is a positional number system. The positional number represents a number as a series of digits where the value of each digit depends on its position in the number. The positional number is referred to as a weighted number system as each digit is related to a certain weight. In this section, we will study only those number systems under … [Read more...] about Number System in Computer

The universal serial bus (USB) is a standard interface for connecting a wide range of devices to the computer such as keyboard, mouse, smartphones, speakers, cameras etc. The USB was introduced for commercial use in the year 1995 at that time it has a data transfer speed of 12 megabits/s. With some improvement, a modified USB 2 was introduced which is also called a highspeed … [Read more...] about Universal Serial Bus (USB)

The I/O interface circuit is a mediator between the I/O device and the system to which this I/O has to be connected. In our earlier content bus structure, we had discussed a little about the I/O interface where we have seen that one end of the I/O interface is connected to the system bus and the other is connected to the input device. In this context, we will discuss the I/O … [Read more...] about Interface Circuit

Interrupt driven I/O is an approach to transfer data between 'memory' and 'I/O devices' through the 'processor'. The other two techniques for the same are programmed I/O and direct memory access (DMA). The interrupt-driven I/O involves the use of interrupt to exchange data between I/O and memory. In our previous content, programmed I/O we have seen it is a processor who … [Read more...] about Interrupt Driven I/O