CSC 204: Information Technology and Networking CSC204_ch01-1

PART

I Chapters
1. System Unit
2. Specialized Application Software
3. System Software

Chapter 1
System Unit

Ralph El Khoury, Wajdi Abboud

 Outline
• Introduction
• System Unit
• System board or motherboard
• Microprocessor
• Memory
• System clock
• Bus line
• Ports
• Expansion slots and cards
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 Introduction
• Computer:
– A set of electronic circuits that allows to
manipulate binary data
• Three main categories of a computer:
– Compute
– Manage data
– Communicate (User – PC, PC – PC)
• Display data to the screen or with a printer
• Write with a keyboard
• Exchange information in the Internet

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 Introduction
• The data and the instructions are represented with
electronic devices
• Computers understand only digital signals
– in opposite to analog signals
• Binary system
– Each 0 and 1 is called bit
– A bit is the simple unit used by the computer
– A byte is the useful data unit
• 8 bits = 1 byte
• 1Kb = 1000 bits
• 1KB = 1000 bytes = 8000 bits

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 Introduction
• Computer character coding :
– Gives a binary representation to characters (including
letters, digits, symbols, etc…)
– Characters are represented with a series of 0 and 1
• using 8 or 16 bits
• E.g.: character A is represented by 01000001 in ASCII code
• There are 3 types of character coding
– ASCII - American Standard Code for Information
Interchange
– EBCDIC - Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange
Code
– Unicode – used to encode a large number of characters
from different international languages.
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 System unit
• Also known as the
chassis,
– resides inside the box of
the computer
• Houses most of the
electronic components
that make up a computer
system
– E.g., motherboard,
microprocessor, memory

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 System board or motherboard
• It is the communications medium for the entire
computer system
– because every component of the system unit connects to
the system board.
• It is a large flat circuit board covered with a variety
of different electronic components.
• It is composed of:
1. sockets
2. chips
3. slots
4. connecting lines
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 System board or motherboard
1. Sockets
– provide a connection point for small specialized electronic
parts called chips.
2. Chips
– A chip or integrated circuit
3. Slots
– provide a connection point for specialized cards or circuit
boards.
– These cards provide expansion capability for a computer
system.
4. Connecting lines called bus lines
– provide pathways that support communication among the
various electronic components

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 Microprocessor
• The central processing
unit (CPU) or processor
is contained on a single
chip called the
microprocessor.
– Can contain a million of
transistors
• The microprocessor is
the "brains" of the
Microprocessor mounted with a fan
computer system.
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 Microprocessor

• It is composed with 3 components:

1. The control unit (CU): coordinate the computer activity
2. The arithmetic/logic unit (ALU): performs two types of operations:
arithmetic and logical
3. Registers: temporary storage of information
– General-purpose registers
– Special-purpose registers: Program Counter (PC), Instruction register (IR), …

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 Microprocessor
Registers
• Small memory with size around 32 to 128 bits each,
located inside CPU
– We can find up to a hundred of registers
• Store temporary data while executing instructions
– Execution becomes more efficient
• Several types of CPU registers are used:
– General Purpose Registers (GPR)
– Special-purpose registers
• Program Counter (PC)
• Instruction Register (IR)
• Accumulator (A)
• Flag Register (FR)

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 Microprocessor
Registers
1. General Purpose Registers
– used for various tasks.
• E.g., store intermediate results of the ALU operations.
2. Program Counter register
– contains the address of the next instruction to be executed
3. Instruction register
– used to hold the instruction being executed
4. Accumulator
– Results of arithmetic and logical operations always go to the
accumulator.
5. Flag register
– stores the status of the last operation carried out by the ALU.
• states such as: overflow, division by zero, final result is a zero, positive or
negative result, results of comparisons

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 Microprocessor
Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU)
• The ALU performs two types of operations:
• Arithmetic operations
– Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
• Logic operations
– Using the operators: AND, OR, NOT, …

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 Microprocessor
Control Unit (CU)
• The CU coordinates the computer activity
• Dictate other units of the computer how to run the
program instructions (command others what to do)
• Directs the flow of bits
– Between main memory and ALU
– Between the CPU and IO devices
• Synchronizes the execution of instructions to
the rhythm of a clock

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 CPU Speed
• CPU speed depends mainly on 4 characteristics
1. Word size
• A word is the number of bits (such as 16, 32, or 64) that can be
manipulated at one time by the CPU.
• A CPU with a 64 bits is more powerful than another with a 32 bits
2. Execution frequency
• Mainly depends on the clock speed
• Expressed in GHz (109 Hz), a billion of impulsion cycle per
second
• An instruction executes in one or more cycles, then
• The average of the instructions executed per second characterize
the speed of the CPU

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 CPU Speed
3. Multi-core processor
– Put in the same chip two or more processors
– Can double the performance without changing
the clock frequency
– Processors executes in parallel (in the same time)
– Need to adapt system and application software
– E.g. Core 2 Duo, …
4. Cache memory
– A large cache memory can speed up the CPU
execution

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 Memory
RAM (random-access memory )
• Hold the program (sequence of instructions) and data that
the CPU is presently processing.
• RAM is temporary or volatile storage
– because everything in most types of RAM is lost as soon as the
microcomputer is turned off.
• Sufficient RAM size is needed for executing large and
many programs
• DRAM and SDRAM are dynamic memories
– allows less time for retrieving data
• Virtual memory
– is a space used on a secondary storage device by the operating
system when there isn't enough RAM to process all applications.

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 Memory
• ROM (read-only memory)
– Have programs built into them at the factory.
• E.g., BIOS (Basic Input Output System)
– ROM chips are not volatile and cannot be changed by the user
• CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor)
– Small memory that contains essential information that is required
every time the computer system is turned on.
– E.g., the current date and time, type of keyboard, mouse, monitor, and
disk drives.

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 Memory
• Cache memory
– Fast to access memory with a capacity around some
Megabytes
– Its location is near the CPU, nearer than the main memory
(RAM)
• Reduce the waiting times for executing instructions
– Store temporary the information that will be soon executed by
the CPU
• Store frequently used information
• Ameliorate the performance of the applications
• Flash memory
– Not volatile, high cost, easy for data transportation, e.g key usb

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 Memory characteristics
• Capacity in number of bytes
– E.g., 1GB (i.e. 1024MB), 256MB, 512MB
• Access time
– time interval between the request for reading/writing and
the availability of data
• Cycle time
– Minimum interval time between two successive access
• Rate
– Maximal number of information that can be read or written
in the memory
• Volatility
– aptitude of the memory for conserving data when the
computer is turned off
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 The System Clock
• Control the speed operation of the computer
• Located on a small specialized chip
• Indicates the speed of processing (operations) of a
computer system
• Measured in gigahertz (GHz) or billion cycles per
second
• There are two clocks
– One speed operations on the bus
– The other, operations inside the CPU

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 Buses
• Buses connect
– the parts of the CPU to each other.
– the CPU to various other components on the system board.
• Transport data, instructions and addresses
• Bus size
– the number of bits that can traverse in the same time on the
bus
– A bus with 64 bits has a capacity larger than one with 16
bits, then the speed of the computer is higher

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 Buses
• There are two types of buses
– System bus: connects the CPU to memory on the system
board.
– Expansion bus: connects the CPU to other components on
the system board.
• There are many types of expansion bus
1. ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
2. PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
3. AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port)
4. USB (Universal Serial Bus)
5. HPSB (High-performance Serial Bus, FireWire buses)
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 Buses
1. ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus
– An old standard that connects expansion cards on the
motherboard
– Use to connect low peripherals
• E.g., modem or sound card
• Bus size: 8 or 16 bits
2. PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus
– developed to meet the video demands of graphical user
interfaces.
– Bus size: 32 or 64 bits. Speed: 130 – 528MB/s
– Standard that connects expansion cards on the motherboard
– Used for the expansion cards: sound, graphic, network

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 Buses
3. AGP (Accelerated graphics port):
– Dedicated to the acceleration of graphics
performance.
– Used for the transfer of video data.
4. USB (Universal serial bus)
– support several external devices without using
expansion cards.
5. FireWire buses operate much like USB
buses.
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 Ports
• A port is a socket for external devices to
connect to the system unit
• We distinguish many types of ports
– Parallel port
– Serial port
– USB port
– Firewire port
– PS/2 port
– VGA port
– RJ45 port
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 Ports
• Parallel port: parallel bits transfer (at the
same time)
• Serial port: transfer bits one after the other
• USB port
– replacing serial and parallel ports
– fast data transfer
– allows the connection of parallel devices at the
same time
– allows connection/disconnection of device using
the plug and play standard

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 Ports
• FireWire port
– faster than USB port, designed for video transfer
• PS/2 port
– connects the mouse and the keyboard
• VGA port
– connects the graphical card to the screen
• RJ45 port
– connects a network cable to the network card

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 Expansion slots and cards
• Expansion cards plug into slots
located on the system board.
• Ports on the cards allow cables
to be connected from the
expansion cards to devices
outside the system unit.
• Some of the more common
devices are
– video cards, sound cards, modem
cards, network interface cards, and
TV Tuner cards.
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 References
• Book
– Computing essentials 2008, O'leary, O'leary
• Web Sites
– http://www.c2imes.org
– http://www.commentcamarche.net/
– http://www.vulgarisation-informatique.com/
– http://www.ybet.be/
– Encyclopedia: Wikipedia
– Notes : Architecture des ordinateurs, T. Dumartin

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