What are buses?
The are used to transfer info between the memory and the processor.
What does the address bus do?
It pinpoints the location in memory that you want to read or write data to/from.
What does the data bus do?
It transfers the data to and from memory.
What is the control bus?
It is made up of separate lines which each perform a different task.
What are the three main parts of the processor?
The Control unit, the Arithmetic and Logic Unit, and the Registers.
What is the arithmetic and logic unit for?
- Carrying out simple arithmetic operations on data
- Carrying out logic operations (comparing one piece of data to another or performing logic operations like AND or NOT) on data.
What does the control unit do?
- Manages the fetching and execution of instructions from memory
- Initiates the transfer of data using the data bus
- Interrupts the processor if another task needs to be done.
What are registers?
Registers are used as temporary storage locations for data and the instructions while they are being used by the processor.
What does the term multi-core processor mean?
It means two or more processors (cores) working on a single chip that can function independently.
How do multi-core processors increase the overall speed of program execution?
Multi-core processors can execute multiple instructions simultaneously, thus increasing the execution speed.
State the seven steps of the fetch execute cycle!
- Copy the contents of the PC to MAR (memory address register) - sets up the address bus
- Activate the read line on the control bus
- Copy the contents of the memory location to the MDR (memory data register) via the data bus.
- Add 1 to the PC (program counter)
- Copy the contents of the MDR to the IR (instruction register)
- Decode the instruction to the IR
- Execute the instruction
