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Basic Computer Organization

Computer is in use in every sphere of life. Almost everything that we do manually can
be done more effectively and efficiently with help of computer..

Computer is used in schools and colleges for education purpose, in business for emails,
websites, keeping tracks of sales records, etc., in sports, entertainment & games for
special effects and more, in research field and several other fields.

So learning about basic functionality of computer becomes must.

Apart from having basic knowledge, if we think a step up then there are several factors
that impacts the cost, storage, performance and types of use. If we take these factors
into consideration then they can impact how the computer system is designed - the
method and concepts used in designing computer.

This is why we hear names personal computer, laptop, super computer, mini computer,
micro computer, etc. Each of them serves different purposes and has different
configurations.

This tutorial is designed to focus on these parameters, concepts and techniques that
goes in designing the computer system.

What is computer organization?

Computer organization is concerned with how the different part of computer system
are interconnected together and how they inter-operate to realize the architectural
specifications.

What is computer architecture?

Computer architecture is the branch of study that deals with computer system overview
along with the conceptual design of computers.
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IAS Computer
Von-neumann designed a new stored-program computer in 1946 with support from his
collegues at Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton. The computer is today known as
IAS computer.
Most of the computers still use the stored program concept of Von-neumann.
IAS computer works on following principles:
• Same memory is used to store both the program and data.
• The program is executed in written sequence.
• A program can modify itself when computer executes the program.
IAS computer CPU used several vacuum-tubes to store operands and results.

Important facts about IAS computer

Given below are important facts about IAS computer or Von-neumann computer.
• The memory contains words that basically represents data or instruction.
• The basic data is a binary number in IAS computer.
• IAS instructions are 20 bits long.
• Instruction in IAS consists of two parts - 1) operation code or op-code which is of
8-bit. 2) address of 12-bit
• IAS instruction allow only one memory address.

IAS computer structure

• The IAS computer has CPU.
• CPU consists of program control unit and data processing unit. It also contains
control unit along with various set of high speed registers. These registers are
meant for temporary storage of instructions and data.
• The main memory is used for storing programs and data.
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Von Neumann Computer

In Von-Neumann computer the CPU has to wait longer to obtain data from the memory
in comparision to recieving data from registers. Reason is quite obvious - registers are
much faster.
CPUs processing speed is much faster in comparsion to the main memory (RAM) as a
result the CPU needs to wait longer to obtain data-word from the memory.
This CPU and memory speed disparity is known as Von Neumann bottleneck.

How can this CPU-memory disparity be resolved?

This problem of Von Neumann bottleneck can be solved in two ways:
• Use of cache memory between CPU and main memory
• Using RISC computers

This performance problem can be reduced by introducing a cache memory (special type
of fast memory) in between the CPU and the main memory.

This is because the speed of the cache memory is almost same as that of the CPU. So
there is no waiting time for CPU and data-word to come to it for processing.

Another way of solving the problem is by using special type of computer known as
Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC).

The main intention of the RISC is to reduce the total number of memory references
made by the CPU instead it uses large number of registers for the same purpose.
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System Bus
Definition:
The electrically conducting path along which data is transmitted inside any digital
electronic device. A Computer bus consists of a set of parallel conductors, which may
be conventional wires, copper tracks on a PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD, or microscopic
aluminum trails on the surface of a silicon chip. Each wire carries just one bit, so the
number of wires determines the largest data WORD the bus can transmit: a bus with
eight wires can carry only 8- bit data words, and hence defines the device as an 8-bit
device.
• The bus is a communication channel.
• The characteristic of the bus is shared transmission media.
• The limitation of a bus is only one transmission at a time.
• A bus which is used to provide communication between the major components
of a computer is called a System bus.

Computer:
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System bus contains 3 categories of lines used to provide the communication between
the CPU, memory and IO named as:
1. Address lines (AL)
2. Data lines (DL)
3. Control lines (CL)

1. Address Lines:
Used to carry the address to memory and IO.
• Unidirectional.
• Based on width of a address bus we can determine the capacity of a main memory

Example:
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2. Data Lines:
• Used to carry the binary data between the CPU, memory and IO.
• Bidirectional.
• Based on the width of a data bus we can determine the word length of a CPU.
• Based on the word length we can determine the performance of a CPU.
Example:

3. Control Lines:
• Used to carry the control signals and timing signals
• Control signals indicates type of operation.
• Timing Signals used to synchronize the memory and IO operations with a CPU
clock.