UNIT 1 Components of a computer and their uses

Control unit

Controls and coordinates the activities of the CPU, directing the flow of the data between the CPU
and other devices (acts as the brain of the entire computer).

Control Bus
In a computer consist of a series of connectors that transfer signals between internal components,
these are called the control bus, there are 2 other types of buses.

Data bus
Typically consisting of 8,16,32 or 64 separate lines, provides a bi-directional path for moving data an
instruction between system components.

Address bus
Memory is divided up internally into units called words. A word is a fixed size group of digits,
typically 16,32 or 64 bits in size which is handled as a unit by a processor.

Program counter
which holds the address of the next instruction to be executed.

Current instruction registers

Which holds the current instruction being executed, divided into operand and opcode.

Memory address registers

Which holds the address of the memory location from which data (or an instruction) is to be fetched
or to which data is to be written.

Memory data registers

Which is used to temporarily store the data read from or written to memory. It is also sometimes
known as the memory buffer register.

The Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle

How the registers are used