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Computer Architecture
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Fundamental Concepts
Computer Architecture
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What is CA?

The science of designing, selecting and interconnecting hardware

components and designing the hardware/software interface to create
computing unit that meets functional, performance, energy
consumption, cost and other specific goals.
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Why Study CA?

 Enable better systems: make computers faster, cheaper, smaller, more

reliable, …

 Enable new applications

 Life-like 3D visualization 20 years ago?
 Virtual reality?
 Personalized genomics? Personalized medicine?

 Enable better solutions to problems

 Software innovation is built into trends and changes in computer architecture
 > 50% performance improvement per year has enabled this innovation

 Understand why computers work the way they do

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CA today

 Today is a very exciting time to study computer architecture

 Industry is in a large paradigm shift (to multi-core and beyond) – many different
potential system designs possible

 Many difficult problems motivating and caused by the shift

 Power/energy constraints -> multi-core?
 Complexity of design -> multi-core?
 Difficulties in technology scaling -> new technologies?
 Memory wall/gap
 Reliability wall/issues
 Programmability wall/problem
 Huge hunger for data and new data-intensive applications

 No clear, definitive answers to these problems

 The
Computer
A peripheral or peripheral device is
used to put information into and
get information out of a computer.

Communication media are

the physical channels through
The
which information is transmitted Computer
between computers in a
network. ... Twisted - pair of wires
are inexpensive media used in
voice grade telephone lines.
Structure
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 CPU – controls the operation of
the computer and performs its data
There are four processing functions
main structural
components  Main Memory – stores data
of the computer:  I/O – moves data between the
computer and its external
environment

 System Interconnection – some

mechanism that provides for
communication among CPU, main
memory, and I/O
+  Control Unit
CPU  Controls the operation of the CPU and
hence the computer
Major structural
 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)
components:  Performs the computer’s data processing
function

 Registers
 Provide storage internal to the CPU

 CPU Interconnection
 Some mechanism that provides for
communication among the control unit,
ALU, and registers
I/O Devices
Bus 
a bus is a connection between components or devices
connected to a computer. For example, a bus carries
data between a CPU and the system memory via
the motherboard.
Why is a computer bus called a bus?
You can think of a computer bus like public transportation or a
school bus. These types of buses are capable of transporting
people from one destination to another destination. Like these
buses, a computer bus transmits data from one location or
device to another location or device.
A computer bus maintains a strict schedule, "picking up" data
and "dropping it off" at a regular interval. For example, if a bus
operates at a frequency of 200 MHz, it completes 200 million
data transfers per second. This speed is referred to as the bus
width.
Types of computer buses
A bus is either a parallel or serial bus, and either an internal bus
(local bus) or an external bus (expansion bus).

Internal bus vs. external bus

An internal bus enables the communication between internal
components, such as a video card and memory. An external bus
is capable of communicating with external peripherals, such as
a USB.
Parallel bus vs. serial bus
A computer bus can transmit its data using either a parallel or
serial method of communication. With a parallel bus, data is
transmitted several bits at a time. However, with a serial bus,
the data is transferred one bit at a time.
Address bus vs. data bus
A computer address bus is the bus
containing the memory location (memory
address) of where data is located in the
computer memory. Once the computer
understands where to get the information,
the data bus is used to transfer that data.
Bus speeds.
Sequential logic is a type of logic circuit whose output depends not
only on the present value of its input signals but on the sequence of past
inputs, the input history as well. Sequential logic is used to construct
finite-state machines, a basic building block in all digital circuitry.
A familiar example of a device with sequential logic is a television set
with "channel up" and "channel down" buttons. Pressing the "up"
button gives the television an input telling it to switch to the next
channel above the one it is currently receiving. If the television is on
channel 5, pressing "up" switches it to receive channel 6. However, if
the television is on channel 8, pressing "up" switches it to channel "9".
In order for the channel selection to operate correctly, the television
must be aware of which channel it is currently receiving, which was
determined by past channel selections. The television stores the current
channel as part of its state. When a "channel up" or "channel down"
input is given to it, the sequential logic of the channel selection circuitry
calculates the new channel from the input and the current channel.
Address decoding 
Address decoding refers to the way
a computer system decodes the
addresses on the address bus to
select memory locations in one or
more memory or peripheral
devices. 
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 End of lecture
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Sr. No. Key Computer Architecture Computer Organization

Purpose Computer architecture explains Computer organization explains how a
1 what a computer should do. computer works.

Target Computer architecture provides Computer organization provides structural

functional behavior of computer relationships between parts of computer
2 system. system.

Design Computer architecture deals with Computer organization deals with low level
3 high level design. design.
Actors Actors in Computer architecture are Actor in computer organizaton is performance.
4 hardware parts.

Order Computer architecture is designed Computer organization is started after

5 first. finalizing computer architecture.

indicates Architecture indicates its hardware. Where, Organization indicates its performance.
6