Computer Architecture

Programmed I/O is one of the three techniques we use for I/O transfer. The other two methods for the same are interrupted I/O and (direct memory access) DMA. Programmed I/O is a technique or approach that we use to transfer data between the processor and the I/O module. If we talk of programmed I/O and interrupted I/O, it is the responsibility of the processor to control the … [Read more...] about Programmed I/O

Internal memory in the computer is the memory that is directly accessible by the processor without accessing the input-output channel of the computer. The internal memory is accessed by the processor over the system bus. In the section ahead we will discuss types of internal memories in computers and we will also look at the technique of error correction for internal memory … [Read more...] about Internal Memory in Computer Architecture

Bus structures in computer plays important role in connecting the internal components of the computer. The bus in the computer is the shared transmission medium. This means multiple components or devices use the same bus structure to transmit the information signals to each other. At a time, only one pair of devices can use this bus to communicate with each other … [Read more...] about Bus Structure in Computer Architecture

Parallelism in a uniprocessor means a system with a single processor performing two or more than two tasks simultaneously. Parallelism can be achieved by two means hardware and software. Parallelism increases efficiency and reduces the time of processing. In this section, we will discuss the structure of a uniprocessor system, and how parallelism can be promoted in the … [Read more...] about Parallelism in Uniprocessor

An interrupt in computer architecture is a signal that requests the processor to suspend its current execution and service the occurred interrupt. To service the interrupt the processor executes the corresponding interrupt service routine (ISR). After the execution of the interrupt service routine, the processor resumes the execution of the suspended program. Interrupts can be … [Read more...] about Interrupts in Computer Architecture

Memory locations and addresses determine how the computer’s memory is organized so that the user can efficiently store or retrieve information from the computer. The computer’s memory is made of a silicon chip which has millions of storage cell, where each storage cell is capable to store a bit of information which value is either 0 or 1. But the fact is, computer memory … [Read more...] about Memory Locations and Addresses

Instruction pipelining is a technique of organising the instructions for execution in such a way that the execution of the current instruction is overlapped by the execution of its subsequent instruction. Instruction pipelining improves the performance of the processor by increasing its throughput i.e. number of instructions per unit time. In this context, we will discuss … [Read more...] about Instruction Pipelining

Cache memory is the fastest memory in a computer that improve the processing speed of the central processing unit i.e. CPU. The cache memory stores the instructions and the data that is frequently used by the processor. In this section, we will discuss various features of cache memory along with the types of cache memory. We will wind up the discussion with the advantages … [Read more...] about Cache Memory

The structure of the instruction cycle defines the processing of a single instruction. The processing of instruction takes various form during the occurrence of an interrupt or if there is indirect addressing present in the instruction. In this section, we will discuss various forms of the instruction cycle. Instruction Cycle Definition The processing involved in the … [Read more...] about Instruction Cycle

Optical memory is an electronic storage medium that uses a laser beam to store and retrieve the data. If we classify the memory system then optical memory comes under the external memory in the computer system. Optical memory can be classified into many types. What is Optical Memory? Optical storage was introduced by Philips and Sony in mid of the 1980s. The optical memory is … [Read more...] about Optical Memory