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Lecture 1 Computer Fundamentals

The document discusses the architecture of computers including the central processing unit and its components like the arithmetic unit, logic unit, and control unit. It describes the main memory and registers used in computers.

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15 views

Lecture 1 Computer Fundamentals

The document discusses the architecture of computers including the central processing unit and its components like the arithmetic unit, logic unit, and control unit. It describes the main memory and registers used in computers.

Uploaded by

SitmCompSansthan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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B.

Tech Batch 2023-24


Lecture 01

Subject Name: Computer Fundamentals and Programming

Subject Code: 2FY208


Stored program architecture of Computers:

Computer architecture refers to the definition of basic attributes of hardware components and their
interconnections, in order to achieve certain specified goals in terms of functions and performance. The
attributes may include, for example the instruction set, data representation, I/O mechanisms, etc. The
architecture basically defines the logical structure of a computer system.

The function of any computer system revolves around a central component known as central processing
unit (CPU). The CPU, which is popularly referred to as the “brain” of the computer, is responsible for
processing the data inside the computer system. It is also responsible for controlling all other components
of the system The central processing unit consists of the following subsystems:
 Arithmetic Unit (AU)
 Logic Unit (LU) ∑
 Control Unit (CU)

The main operations of the CPU include four phases:


 Fetching instructions from the memory.
 Decoding the instructions to decide what operations to be preformed.
 Executing the instructions.
 Storing the results back in the memory.
Arithmetic Unit Arithmetic Unit (AU) is a part of the CPU that performs arithmetic operations on the
data. The arithmetic operations can be addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. The multiplication
and division operations are usually implemented by the AU as the repetitive process of addition and
subtraction operations respectively. AU takes the input in the form of an instruction that contains an
opcode, operands and the format code. The opcode specifies the operation to be performed and the
operands specify the data on which operation is to be performed. The format code suggests the format of
the operands, such as fixed-point or floating-point. The output of AU contains the result of the operation
and the status of the result, whether it is final or not. The output is stored in a storage register by the AU.
Register is a small storage area inside the CPU from where data is retrieved faster than any other storage
area.

Logic Unit
Logic Unit (LU) is a part of the CPU that performs logical operations on the data. It performs 16
different types of logical operations. The various logical operations include greater than (>), less than (<),
equal to (=), not equal to (≠), shift left, shift right, etc. LU makes use of various logic gates, such as
AND, OR, NOR, etc for performing the logical operations on the data.

Control Unit
Control Unit (CU) is an important component of CPU that controls the flow of data and information. It
maintains the sequence of operations being performed by the CPU. It fetches an instruction from the
storage area, decodes the instruction and transmits the corresponding signals to the AU or LU and the
storage registers. CU guides the AU and LU about the operations that are to be performed and also
suggests the I/O devices to which the data is to be communicated. CU uses a program counter register for
retrieving the next instruction that is to be executed. It also uses a status register for handling conditions
such as overflow of data.

The main memory


It is referred to as the internal memory or primary memory of the computer. It is also known as Random
Access Memory (RAM). It is a temporary storage medium that holds the data only for a short period of
time. Once the computer is switched off, the data stored in the RAM gets erased. The memory space of
RAM is limited and therefore all the fi les and instructions cannot be stored in it. These fi les and
instructions are normally stored in a different location known as secondary storage and are copied from
there to the RAM before execution. This technique is referred as swapping. The memory space available
in RAM also affects the speed of a computer system. If the memory space is more, more number of
instructions can be copied and executed at the same time. As a result, the computer system need not read
the data from the secondary storage again and again, thus making the processing faster

Registers
Central processing unit contains a few special purpose, temporary storage units known as registers. They
are high-speed memory locations used for holding instructions, data and intermediate results that are
currently being processed. A processor can have different types of registers to hold different types of
information. They include, among others:
 Program Counter (PC) to keep track of the next instruction to be executed.
 Instruction Register (IR) to hold instructions to be decoded by the control unit.
 Memory Address Register (MAR) to hold the address of the next location in the memory to be
accessed.
 Memory Buffer Register (MBR) for storing data received from or sent to CPU.
 Memory Data Register (MDR) for storing operands and data.
 Accumulator (ACC) for storing the results produced by arithmetic and logic units.

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