The is a fundamental concept in computer science that describes the design of a . It consists of several key components, with the (CPU) being the brain of the system. The CPU is responsible for executing instructions and contains two crucial units: the and the .
The Control Unit coordinates the flow of data and instructions within the computer. It utilizes various s to store vital information during the execution process. The is a register that keeps track of the address of the next instruction to be fetched. On the other hand, the temporarily holds the data being transferred between the CPU and memory. Similarly, the holds the address of the next location in memory to read or write data.
To perform instructions, the CPU follows a series of stages known as the Instruction Cycle. This cycle includes several steps: , , and . During Instruction Fetch, the control unit retrieves the next instruction from memory using the memory address register and places it in the . The Instruction Decode stage then interprets the fetched instruction, extracting the opcode (operation code) and operands.
Once the instruction is decoded, the CPU proceeds to the Instruction Execution stage. Here, the control unit directs the ALU to perform the necessary calculations or logical operations on the operands. The ALU contains registers such as the , which temporarily stores intermediate results during computation.
While the CPU is responsible for performing computations, the subsystem handles communication between the computer and external devices. The I/O devices are connected to the CPU through a , which consists of multiple interconnecting pathways. These pathways are categorized into different buses: the , , and . The control bus carries control signals between the CPU and I/O devices, while the data bus transfers data. Lastly, the address bus carries memory addresses, allowing the CPU to access specific locations in memory.
Keywords
memory address register | address bus | memory data register | instruction register | accumulator | memory | von neumann architecture | program counter | input/output (i/o) | stored-program computer | bus | register | instruction decode | data bus | control unit | central processing unit | control bus | instruction execution | arithmetic logic unit (alu) | instruction fetch |
