Computer Organization & Architecture

MODULE 1

Basic Structure of Computers

Computer Organization describes the function and design of various units of digital
computer that store and process information. It also deals with the units of computer that
receive information from external sources and send results to external destinations.

Computer Types

A computer is a fast electronic calculating machine that that accepts digitized input
information processes it according to a list of internally stored instructions and produces the
resulting output information. The list of instructions is called a computer program and the
internal storage is called computer memory.

Many computers differ widely in size, cost, computational power and intended use.

1. Desktop computers have processing and storage units, visual display and audio output
units and keyboard that can be located on a home or office desk.
2. Personal Notebook computers a compact version of personal computers with all
components packaged into single unit the size of a thin briefcase.
3. Workstations with high resolution graphics input/output capability with the same
dimension as desktop computers have more computational power.
4. A range of large and powerful computer systems exist that are called enterprise systems
and servers at low end of the range and servers at high end.

Functional Units

A computer consists of five functionally independent main parts: input, memory,

arithmetic and logic, output and control units as shown in fig 1.1.

Arithmetic
Input and
logic

Memory

Output Control

I/O Processor

Fig 1.1 Basic functional units of a computer

Dept of ECE, CMRIT I/O 1

I/O
Computer Organization & Architecture

The input unit accepts coded information from human operators, from electromechanical
devices such as keyboards or from other computers over digital communication line. The information
received is either stored in the computer memory for later reference or immediately used by the
arithmetic and logic circuitry to perform the desired operations. The processing steps are determined
by the program stored in the memory. Finally the results are shown on the output unit. All of these
actions are co-ordinated by the control unit. We refer to the arithmetic and logic circuits in
conjunction to the control circuits as the processor and input and output units are referred to as input-
output (I/O) unit.

Instructions or machine instructions are explicit commands that

 Govern the transfer of information within a computer as well as between the

computers and its I/O devices.
 Specify the arithmetic and logic operations to be performed.

A list of instructions that perform a task is called program. The computer is completely
controlled by a stored program except for a possible external interruption by an operator or by I/O
devices connected to the machine. Data is used to mean any digital information. Each number,
character or instruction is encoded as a string of binary digits known as bits each having one of two
possible values 0 or 1.

Input Unit

Computers accept the coded information through input units which read the data. The
well known input device is Keyboard. When a key is pressed, the corresponding letter or digit
is automatically translated into its corresponding binary code and transmitted over a cable to
either the memory or processor.

Memory Unit

The memory unit is used to store program and data. There are two classes of storage
known as primary and secondary.

Primary memory is a fast storage that operates at electronic speeds. Programs are
stored in the memory while they are executed. The memory contains large number of
semiconductor storage cells each capable of storing one bit but instead are processed as
groups of fixed size called words. The memory is organized so that a word can be stored or
retrieved in one basic operation. A distinct address is associated to each word in the memory.
Addresses are numbers that identify successive locations.

Programs must reside in the memory during execution. Instructions and data can be
read out or written into the memory under the control of the processor. Memory in which any
location can be reached in short and fixed amount of time after specifying its address is called
random-access memory (RAM). The small, fast RAM units are called caches.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 2

Computer Organization & Architecture

The additional cheaper secondary storage is used when large amount of data and
many programs have to be stored particularly for information that is accessed infrequently.

Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)

Any arithmetic and logic operation is initiated by bringing the required
operands into the processor where the operation is performed by the ALU. When the
operands are brought into the processor they are stored in high speed storage elements called
registers. Access time to register is faster than access time to the fastest cache unit in the
memory hierarchy. The control and the arithmetic logic units are many times faster than any
other devices connected to a computer system.

Output Unit

The output unit is a counterpart of input unit. Its function is used the processed results
to the outside world. The most familiar example of such a device is a printer.

Control Unit

The control unit is a well defined physically separate unit that interacts with other
parts of the machine. The control unit sends the control signals to other units and senses their
states. Timing signals are generated by the control circuits that determine when a given action
is to take place. Data transfer between memory and processor is also controlled unit through
timing signals. A large set of control lines (wires) carries the signals used for timing and
synchronization of events in all units.

Basic Operational Concepts

To perform a given task, an appropriate program consisting of a list of instructions is
stored in the memory. Individual instructions are brought from the memory into the
processor, which executes the specified operations. Data to be used as operands are also
stored in the memory. A typical instruction may be

Add LOCA, R0

This instruction adds the operand at memory location LOCA to the operand in a
register in the processor, R0, and places the sum in the register R0. The original contents of
location LOCA are preserved whereas those of R0 are overwritten. First the instruction is
fetched from the memory into the processor. Next the operand at LOCA is fetched and added
to the contents of R0. Finally the resulting sum is stored in register R0.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 3

Computer Organization & Architecture

Transfers between memory and processor are started by sending the address of the
memory location to be accessed to the memory unit and issuing the appropriate control
signals. The data is transferred to or from the memory. The memory and processor
connection is shown in Fig 1.2.

Memory

MAR MDR
Control

PC R0

R1

IR .

. ALU

Rn-1

n general purpose registers

Fig 1.2 Connections between the processor and memory

The Instruction register (IR) holds the instruction that is currently being executed. Its
output is available to control circuits which generate the timing signals that control various
processing elements involved in executing the instruction.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 4

Computer Organization & Architecture

The Program Counter (PC) holds the address of the next instruction to be fetched and
executed. During the execution of an instruction, the contents of the PC are updated to
correspond to the address of the next instruction to be executed. MAR and MDR facilitate
communication with the memory.

MAR (Memory Address Register) hold the address of the location to be accessed and
MDR (Memory Data Register) contains data written into or read out of the addressed
location.

If some devices require urgent servicing then they raise the interrupt signal
interrupting the normal execution of the current program. The processor provides the
requested service by executing the appropriate interrupt service routine.

Bus Structures
The individual parts of a computer need to be connected in an organized way to
increase the speed of operation. When a word of data is transferred between units, all its bits
are transferred in parallel that is bits are transferred simultaneously over many wires or lines,
one bit per line. A group of lines that serves as a connecting path for several devices is called
a bus. The simplest way to inter connect functional units is to use a single bus as shown in
Fig 1.3.

Input Output Memory Processor

Fig 1.4: Single-bus structure

The main virtue of single-bus structure is its low cost and its flexibility for attaching
peripheral devices. Systems that contain multiple buses achieve more concurrency in
operation by allowing two or more transfers to be carried out at the same time. This leads to
better performance but at increased cost.

A common approach is to include buffer registers with the devices to hold the
information during transfers.
Dept of ECE, CMRIT 5
Computer Organization & Architecture

Software
System software is a collection of programs that are executed as needed to perform
functions such as:

 Receiving and interpreting user commands.

 Entering and editing application programs and storing them as files in secondary
storage devices.
 Managing the storage and retrieval of files in secondary storage devices.
 Running standard application programs such as word processors, spreadsheets or
games with data supplied by users.
 Controlling I/O units to receive input information and produce output results.
 Translating programs from source form prepared by user into object form consisting
of machine instructions.
 Linking and running user written application programs with existing standard library
routines such as numerical computational packages.

A compiler is a system software program translates the high level language program in to
a suitable machine language program containing instructions such as Add and Load
instructions.

Operating system (OS) is a large program or actually a collection of routines that is

used to control the sharing of and interaction among various computer units as they execute
application programs. The OS routines perform the tasks required to assign computer
resources to individual application programs. These tasks include assigning memory and
magnetic disk space to program and data files, moving data between memory and disk units
and handling I/O operations.

Consider a system with one processor, one disk and one printer. When the application
program has been compiled from a high language form to machine language form and stored
on the disk. The first step is to transfer this file into the memory. When the transfer is
complete, execution of the program is started. Assume part of the program’s task involves
reading a data file from the disk in to the memory, performing some computations on the data
and printing the results. When the execution of the program reaches the point where the data
file is needed, the program requests the operating system to transfer the data file from the
disk to the memory. The OS performs this task and passes the execution control back to the
application program, which then proceeds to perform the required computation. When the
computation is completed and the results are ready to be printed, the application program
again sends the request to the operating system. An OS routine is then executed to cause the
printer to print the results.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 6

Computer Organization & Architecture

Printer

Disk

OS
routines

Program

Time

Fig 1.5: User program and OS routine sharing of the processor

The execution control passes back and forth between application program and OS
routines. This sharing of processor execution time is illustrated by a time line diagram as
shown in Fig 1.5. During the time period to , an OS routine initiates the application
loading program from the disk to the memory, waits until the transfer is completed, and
then passes execution control to the application program. A similar pattern of activity
occurs during period to and period to , when the operating system transfers the
data file from the disk and print the results. At , the operating system may load and
execute another application program. Notice that the disk and processor are idle during
most of the time period to . The operating system manages the concurrent execution
of several application programs to make best possible use of computer resources. This
pattern of concurrent execution is called multiprogramming or multitasking.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 7

Computer Organization & Architecture

Performance
The total time required to execute the program is known as elapse time. This is a
measure of performance of entire computer system. The periods during which processor is
active is used to measure the performance of processor. The sum of these periods is
referred to as processor time. The processor time depends on the hardware involved in the
execution of individual machine instructions. This hardware comprises the processor and
the memory which are connected by a bus as shown in Fig 1.6.

Cache
Main Memory Processor
Memory

Bus

Fig 1.6: The processor cache

At the start of execution, all program instructions and the required data are stored in
the main memory. As execution proceeds, instructions are fetched one by one over the
bus into the processor, and a copy is placed in the cache. When the execution of an
instruction calls for data located in the main memory, the data are fetched and a copy is
placed in the cache. Later if the same instruction or data item is needed a second time, it is
read directly from the cache.

Processor Clock
Processor circuits are controlled by a timing signal called clock. The clock defines
regular time intervals called clock cycles. To execute a machine instruction, the processor
divides the action to be performed into a sequence of basic steps, such that each can be
completed in one clock cycle. The length of one clock cycle is an important parameter
that affects the processor performance. Its inverse is the clock rate, which is
measured in cycles per second.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 8

Computer Organization & Architecture

Basic Performance Equation

Let be the processor time required to execute a program that has been prepared by
some high level language. The compiler generates machine level object program that
corresponds to source program. Assume that complete execution of the program requires
the execution of machine language instructions. Suppose that the average number of
basic steps needed to execute one machine instruction is , where each basic step is
completed in one clock cycle. If the clock rate is cycles per second, the program
execution time is given by basic performance equation.

To achieve high performance, the value of must be reduced which can be done by
reducing and , and increasing . The value of is reduced if the source program is
compiled in fewer machine instructions. The value of is reduced if instructions have a
smaller number of basic steps to perform or if the execution of instructions are
overlapped. Using a higher-frequency clock increases the value of which means the
time required to complete a basic execution step is reduced.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 9

Computer Organization & Architecture

Machine Instructions and Programs

In assembly language, machine instructions and operand addressing information are
represented by symbolic names. A complete set is often referred to as instruction set
architecture (ISA) of processor. ISA also specifies the addressing methods used for
accessing data operands and the processor registers available for use by the instructions.

Numbers, Arithmetic operations and characters

Computers are built using logic circuits that operate on information represented by
two valued electrical signals. We label the two values as and and we define the
amount of information represented by such a signal as a bit of information, where bit
stands for binary digit. A text character can also be represented by a string of bits called a
character code.

Number Representation
Consider an n-bit vector

where or for . This vector can represent unsigned integer values

in the range to , where

We need to represent both positive and negative numbers. Three systems are used for
representing such numbers:

 Sign-and-magnitude
 1’s-complement
 2’s-complement

In the sign-and-magnitude system, negative values are represented by changing the

most significant bit from to in the B vector as shown in Fig 1.7. In 1’s complement
representation, negative values are obtained by complementing each bit of the corresponding
positive number. Finally in 2’s-complement system, forming 2’s complement of a number is
done by subtracting that numbers from . Hence the 2’s complement of a number is obtained
by adding 1 to the 1’s complement of that number. The 2’s complement system yields the
most effective way to carry out addition and subtraction operations.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 10

Computer Organization & Architecture

B Values represented

Sign and
magnitude 1’s complement 2’s complement

Fig 1.7: Binary, signed-integer representations

Addition and Subtraction of Signed numbers

The 2’s complement is the most efficient method for performing addition and
subtraction operations. A helpful graphical device for the description of addition mod of
positive integers is a circle with values, through marked along its perimeter as
shown in Fig 1.8.

Fig 1.8: Circle representation of integers mod

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 11
Computer Organization & Architecture

This graphical techniques works for the computation of mod for any
positive integers and , that is , to perform addition , locate and move units in the
clockwise direction to arrive at mod . Let us apply the mod addition technique
to add to . The 2’s complement representation of these numbers is and . To
add these numbers locate on the circle in Fig 1.9 and then move steps in the
clockwise direction to arrive at , which yields the correct answer of .

Fig 1.9: Mod 16 system for 2’s-complement numbers

We now state the rules governing the addition and subtraction of -bit signed
numbers using 2’s-complement representation systems.
1. To add two numbers, add their -bit representations, ignoring the carry-out signal
from the most significant bit (MSB) position.
2. To subtract two numbers and that is to perform , form the 2’s complement
of and add it to as in rule 1.
The results will be algebraically correct in the 2’s complement representation if the
answer is in the range through .

For a negative number, the left most bit which is a sign bit is a , and a longer number
with the same value is obtained by replicating the sign bit to the left as many times as desired.
This operation of representing the signed number in 2’s complement form using a large
number of bits by repeating the sign bit as many times as needed to the left is known as sign
extension.

When the result of an operation is outside the representable range, an arithmetic

overflow has occurred. A simple way to detect overflow is to examine the signs of summands
and and the sign of the result. When both operands and have the same sign, an
overflow occurs when the sign of is not the same as and .

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 12

Computer Organization & Architecture

Memory Locations and Addresses

Number and character operands as well as instructions are stored in the memory of a
computer. The memory consists of millions of storage cells, each of which can store bit of
information having a value or . The memory is organized so that a group of n bits can be
stored or retrieved in a single basic operation. Each group of n bits is referred to as word of
information, and n is called word length. The memory of a computer can be systematically
represented as collection of words as shown in Fig 1.10.

n bits

first word

second word

i-th word

last word

Fig 1.10: Memory words

Accessing the memory to store or retrieve a single item of information, either a byte
or word, requires distinct names or addresses for each item location. The addresses
constitute the address space of the computer, and the memory can have up to addressable
locations. For example, a bit address generates an address space of
locations.
A byte is always bits but the word length typically ranges from to bits. The
successive addresses refer to successive byte locations in the memory. The term byte-
addressable memory is used for this assignment. Byte locations of addresses Thus, if
word length of the machine is 32 bits, successive words are located at addresses
with each word consisting of four bytes.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 13

Computer Organization & Architecture

Big-Endian and Little-Endian Assignments

The name big-endian is used when the lower byte addresses are used for the most
significant bytes (the leftmost bytes) of the word. The little-endian is used for the opposite
ordering, when the lower byte addresses for the less significant bytes (the rightmost bytes) of
the word. In both cases, byte addresses are taken as the address for the successive
words in the memory and are the addresses used when specifying the memory read and write
operation for the words. The two ways that the byte addresses can be used across the words
as shown in Fig 1.11.

Fig 1.11: a) Big-endian assignment b) Little-endian assignment

The word locations have aligned addresses where the word begins at a byte address
that is a multiple of number of bytes in a word. If the word length is bytes , aligned
words begins at byte addresses
Individual characters can be accessed by their byte address. The beginning of a string
is indicated by giving the address of the byte containing its first character. Successive byte
locations contain successive characters of the string. A special character “end of string” can
be used as last character in the string, or a separate memory word location or processor
register can contain a number indicating the length of the string in bytes.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 14

Computer Organization & Architecture

Memory Operations
Both program instructions and data operands are stored in the memory. To execute an
instruction, the processor control circuits must cause the word (or words) containing the
instructions to be transferred from the memory to the processor. Operands and results must
also be moved between memory and processor. Thus the two basic operations involving
memory are needed, namely, Load (or Read or Fetch) and Store (or Write).
The Load operation transfers a copy of the contents of a specified memory location to
the processor. The memory content remains unchanged. The Store operation transfers an item
of information from the processor to a specific memory location destroying the contents of
that location.

Instructions and Instruction Sequence

A computer must have instructions capable of performing four types of operations:
 Data transfer between memory and the processor registers
 Arithmetic and logic operations on data
 Program sequencing and control
 I/O transfers

The possible locations that may be involved in transfer of information from one
location of computer to another are memory locations, processor registers or registers in the
I/O subsystem. The names for the addresses of memory locations may be LOC, PLACE, A,
VAR2; processor register names may be R0, R5; and I/O register names may be DATAIN,
OUTSTATUS. The expression

The contents of the memory location are transferred in to the processor

register . This type of notation is known as Register Transfer Notation. The assembly
language format is used to represent machine instructions and programs. The assembly
language statement

Adds two numbers contained in the processor registers and and placing their
sum in without changing the contents of and .

The two-address instruction is of the form

Operation Source, Destination

There are machine instructions that specify only one memory operand. When a
second operand is needed, it is understood implicitly to be in unique location. A processor
register called the accumulator is used for this purpose.
Dept of ECE, CMRIT 15
Computer Organization & Architecture

Let us consider the one-address instructions

and

The Load instruction copies the content of memory location into the accumulator,
and the Store instruction copies the contents of accumulator into memory location . When
data is moved to or from a processor register, the Move instruction can be used rather than
Load or Store instructions because of the order of source and destination operands determines
which operation is intended. Thus

is the same as

and

is same as

A substantial increase in speed is achieved when several operations are performed in

succession on data in processor registers without the need to copy the data to or from the
memory. It is also possible to use instructions in which location of all operands are defined
implicitly. Such instructions are found in machines that store operands in structure called
pushdown stack. In this case instructions are called zero-address instructions.

Instruction Execution and Straight-Line Sequence

We assume computer allows one memory operand per instruction and has a number
of processor registers. Fig 1.12 shows a program segment in the memory of a computer. The
word length is bits and the memory is byte addressable. Each instruction is 4 bytes long,
the second and third instructions start at addresses and

The Program Counter (PC) contains the address of the instruction to be executed next.
To begin executing a program, the address of its fist instruction must be placed in to PC.
Then the processor control circuits use the information in the PC to fetch and execute the
instructions, one at a time, in the order of increasing addresses. This is called straight-line
sequencing.

Executing a given instruction is a two phase-procedure. In the first phase called

instruction fetch, the instruction is fetched from the memory location whose address is in the
PC. This instruction is placed in the instruction register (IR) in the processor. At the start of
second phase called instruction execute, the instruction in the IR is examined to determine
which operation is to be determined.
Dept of ECE, CMRIT 16
Computer Organization & Architecture

Address Contents

Begin execution here

3-instruction
program
segment



Data for the

 program


Fig 1.12: A program for

Branching

Consider a task of adding a list of numbers. The address of the memory locations
containing the numbers are given as and a separate
instruction is used to add each number to the contents of the register . After all numbers
have been added, the result is placed in the memory location .

Instead of using a long list of instructions, it is possible to place a single

instruction in a program loop as shown in Fig 1.13. The loop is a straight line sequence of
instructions executed as many times as needed. It starts at location LOOP and ends at the
instruction Branch>0. is used as a counter to determine the number of times loop is
executed and holds the contents of the memory location which contains the number of
entries in the list . Then, within the body of loop, the instruction

Execution of the loop is repeated as long as the result of the decrement operation is
greater than zero.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 17

Computer Organization & Architecture

Determine the address of

“Next” number and add
“Next” number to R0

LOOP

SUM

NUM1

NUM2


NUMn

Fig 1.13: Using a loop to add numbers

A conditional branch instruction causes a branch only if a specified condition is

satisfied. If the condition is not satisfied, the PC is incremented in a normal way and the next
instruction in sequential address order is fetched and executed.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 18

Computer Organization & Architecture

Conditional Codes
The processor keeps track of information about the results of various operations for
use by subsequent conditional branch instructions. This is accomplished by recording the
required information in individual bits, often called conditional code flags. These flags are
usually grouped together in a special processor register called the conditional code register or
status register. Individual condition code flags are set to or cleared to , depending on the
outcome of the operation performed.
Four commonly used flags are
 N (negative) Set to 1 if the result is negative; otherwise, cleared to .
 Z (Zero) Set to 1 if the result is ; otherwise, cleared to .
 V (Overflow) Set to 1 if arithmetic overflow occurs; otherwise, cleared to .
 C (Carry) Set to if carry-out results from the operation; otherwise, cleared to
.

IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Numbers

A computer must be able to represent numbers and operate on them in such a way that
the position of the binary point is variable and automatically adjusted as the computation
proceeds. In such a case binary point is said to float and the numbers are called floating-point
numbers. For example, in the familiar decimal scientific notation, the numbers can be written
as . The numbers are said to be given to five significant
digits. When the decimal point is placed to the right of the first (nonzero) significant digit, the
number is said to be normalized. The floating-point number is represented by its sign, string
of significant digits, commonly called mantissa, and an exponent to an implied base for the
scale factor.
The standard for representing floating-point numbers in bits is specified by IEEE
is given in Fig 1.14. A bit mantissa can represent a 7-digit decimal number and an 8 bit
exponent. The sign of the number is given in the first bit, followed by the representation for
the exponent (to the base 2) of the scale factor. The signed exponent component is stored in
the form of unsigned integer . This is called excess-127 format.

Fig 1.14: IEEE standard floating-point format

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 19

Computer Organization & Architecture

PROBLEMS

1. List the steps needed to execute the machine instruction

Assume that the instruction is stored in memory location INSTR and this address is
initially in register PC.

Sol: The steps needed to execute this machine instruction are listed below:
 Transfer the contents of PC to register MAR
 Issue a Read command to memory, and then wait until it has transferred the
requested word into register MDR.
 Transfer the instruction from MDR into IR and decode it.
 Transfer the address LOCA from IR to MAR.
 Issue a Read command and wait until MDR is loaded.
 Transfer contents of MDR to the ALU.
 Transfer contents of R0 to the ALU.
 Perform addition of the two operands in the ALU and transfer result into
R0.
 Transfer contents of PC to ALU.
 Add 1 to operand in ALU and transfer incremented address to PC.

2. Give a short sequence of machine instruction for the task “Add the contents of
memory location A to those of location B and place the answer in location C”. Use
only Load and Store instructions to transfer the data between memory and general
purpose registers. Do not destroy the contents of either location A or B.

Sol: Load A, R0
Load B, R1
Add R0, R1
Store R1, C

3. Let each of the six OS routine execution intervals are 1 unit of time, with each disk
operation requiring 3 units, printing requiring 3 units and each program execution
interval requiring 2 units of time. Compute the ratio of best overlapped time to non
overlapped time for a long sequence of programs. Ignore the start up and ending
transients.

Sol: Non-overlapped time of program is units of time composed as

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 20

Computer Organization & Architecture

Program

1 3 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3 1

Input Compute Output

Overlapped time is composed as

Program

1 3 1

Output time units

1 3 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 3 1

Input Compute Output

Program

1 3 1

Time between successive program completions in the overlapped case is 15 time

units, while in the non-overlapped case it is 19 time units.
Therefore, the ratio is 15/19.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 21

Computer Organization & Architecture

4. The program can be run on RISC or CISC computers. The effective value of S in the
expression of T for the RISC machine is 1.2, but is only 1.5 for the CISC machine.
What is the largest allowable value for N, the number of instructions executed o the
CISC machine, expressed as percentage of the N value for the RISC machine, if the
time required on the CISC is to be no longer than that on the RISC machine?
Repeat the same problem if the clock rate R for the RISC machine is 15% higher
than that of CISC machine.

Sol: Let and be the execution times on the RISC and

CISC processors. Equating execution times and clock rates, we have

Then

Therefore the largest allowable value for

If the clock rate R for the RISC machine is 15% higher than that of CISC machine. Then
we have

Then

Therefore the largest allowable value for

5. Write a program that can evaluate the expression in a single

accumulator processor. Assume that the processor has Load, Store, Multiply and Add
instructions that has all values fit in the accumulator.

Sol: Load A
Multiply B
Store RESULT
Load C
Multiply D
Add RESULT
Store RESULT

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 22

Computer Organization & Architecture

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS

1. Explain different functional units of a digital computer.

2. Explain the function of Processor registers with a block diagram.
3. Define Bus. Explain single bus structure with a neat block diagram.
4. List the functions of System Software.
5. Explain the following
i) Byte addressability ii) Big Endian assignment iii) Little Endian assignment.
6. Discuss the steps involved in running one application program using OS routines with
a time-line diagram.
7. What is register transfer notations. Give examples.
8. How to measure the performance of a computer? Explain.
9. What is Straight Line Sequencing? Explain with an example.
10. What is word alignment of a machine? Explain with examples.
11. What are Condition Code flags? Explain the four commonly used flags.
12. Explain the concept of branching with a loop to add n numbers.
13. Explain IEEE standard format for floating point number.

Dept of ECE, CMRIT 23