System Architecture (Topic 1) Flashcards
(69 cards)
What is the accumulator used for?
It is used for temporarily storing arithmetic and logical results
What is the program counter used for?
Used for holding the address of the current instruction to be executed, and the address of data to be used in instruction
What is the memory data register (MDR) used for?
Points to the next instruction that needs to be executed. It is located in the Control Unit
What is the Memory Address Register used for?
Used for holding the actual instruction or data that is stored in RAM
Von Neumann architecture uses the ‘stored program’ concept. Describe what this means.
The concept means that both the program and data are stored in the same memory, allowing the computer to fetch and execute instructions from memory.
How does the computer know whether an address contains an instruction to be executed, or data to be used in an instruction?
The Program Counter (PC) points to the next instruction to be run. When the CPU needs to use data, it looks at other addresses with the Memory Address Register (MAR). This helps the CPU tell the difference between fetching instructions and getting data, depending on what it’s working on.
Name 2 input devices?
Keyboard
Mouse
Name 2 output devices
Monitor/Screen
Speaker
Name one storage device
Hard Drive
Explain the purpose of the Central Processing Unit or CPU?
To perform calculations and execute instructions that make up programs. It acts as the brain of the computer, carrying out tasks like processing data, controlling other hardware, and managing operations by fetching, decoding, and executing instructions from memory.
Purpose of the MAR
Holds the address of the memory location that is currently being accessed, either for reading or writing data.
Purpose of the MDR
Holds the data that is being transferred to or from memory. It stores the actual data being read from or written to the memory address specified by the MAR.
Purpose of the Program Counter
Holds the address of the next instruction to be executed. It automatically increments after each instruction is fetched, pointing to the next instruction.
Purpose of the accumulator
Holds intermediate results of calculations performed by the CPU, especially during arithmetic or logic operations. It is updated by the ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) with the results of such operations.
The CPU operates on a cycle. What is the name of this cycle?
The Fetch-Decode-Execute Cycle
Describe how the use of cache in a computer system can affect the performance of the CPU.
Cache memory temporarily stores information, data and programs that are commonly used by the CPU. The more Cache Memory that a computer has, the more information is retrieved.
A dual-core computer system has two cores. Explain two components that each core will contain.
Each core will contain half of the cache that is within the computer. Level 1 cache, level 2 cache and level 3 cache. Level 1 is the fastest, and Level 3 is the slowest. Cache is the speed that the information is fetched.
Explain what is meant by an ‘embedded system’.
An embedded system is a system that only has a CPU, RAM and ROM. This system only has 1 function that can be used. For the drum kit, the function is when hit, a sound will play.
How does the clock speed affect performance?
Every tick that the clock preforms. it will count as 1 instruction completed. These are calculated in hz. The faster the tick speed the more instructions that are completed at one time.
How does the cache size affect performance?
The larger the cache the more memory that can be processed. They come in 3 levels with 1 being the fastest and 3 being the slowest. However, level 3 is still faster at processing memory than RAM. The larger the cache = the faster processing.
How does the number of cores affect the performance?
The number of cores are the number of instructions that are fetched at once. The more cores the more instructions that will be fetched, however, normally it will share the cache and it sometimes isn’t as valuable.
Computer A has a quad core processor with a frequency of 2GHz.
Computer B has a dual core processor with a frequency of 4GHz.
What is the maximum number of fetch-execute cycles that each processor could achieve?
Computer A, with a quad core processor (2GHz) will be able to reach a maximum number of fetch-execute cycles of 8 GHz.
Computer B, with a dual core processor (3 GHz) will also be able to reach a maximum number of fetch-execute cycles of 8 GHz.
How the use of cache can improve the performance of CPUs.
The cache can improve the performance of CPUs because the more cache you have, the faster the data retrieval performance will be. This helps run the fetch-decode-execute cycle enhancing computer performance.
How does a camera use an embedded system?
The function of it is to capture a frame, ( or a picture ) it is saved in ROM which is a small temporary storage unit, it has to use RAM to harvest the memory of the frame it is capturing.
