LEARNING AIM B

Understand how data

flows between internal
components of a
computer and is
processed to provide
information

INTERNAL COMPONENTS OF
A COMPUTER (OVERVIEW)
Motherboard: The circuit board inside a computer that houses the
CPU, memory and connections to other devices.
The Motherboard is essential as a means of connecting all of the
computer's parts together.
Busesare circuits on the motherboard that connect the CPU to
other components. There are many buses on the motherboard. A
bus movesinstructionsand data around the system. The speed of
a bus is measured inmegahertz(mHz). The faster the bus, the
faster data is communicated. The speed of the motherboard is
defined by thebus speed.

MOTHERBOARD CONTINUED
Buses are limited by their width inbits. They are usually 8, 16 or 32-bits wide. This
tells us how many bits can be sent by the bus at any one time, eg a 32-bit bus can
send 32 bits at once.
The bus that connects the CPU to the memory is called thefront-side bus (FSB)or
system bus. CPUcoresshare Level 2 and Level 3 cacheacross the FSB. They will
usually connect to Level 2 cache through theback-side bus (BSB). The BSB is much
faster than the FSB.
The FSB contains two types of bus:
Address bus- this sends information about where data needs to go by sending an
address to the memory. The address bus only sends data in one direction - from the
CPU toRAM.
Data bus- this sends data to the memory or receives data from the memory. Data
can flow both ways along the data bus.

CPU
Central Processing Unit (CPU): the brains of the computer that
processes program instructions. Also called a microprocessor.
The CPU is split into a number of different parts:
Control Unit
Arithmetic / Logic Unit
Registers

CONTROL UNIT
The control unit is part of the central processing unit (CPU). It
controls the flow of information through the processor, and
coordinates the activities of the other units within it. It is also
referred as "brain within the brain", as it controls what happens
inside the processor, which controls the rest of the PC.
It links the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) with the system memory. It
conducts operations. For example, it accepts data from the system
memory, passes the data through ALU for performing the
operations it has to, and returns processed data back to the system
memory.

ALU ARITHMETIC / LOGIC

UNIT
The ALU is a vital part of the central processing unit.
The job of the ALU is to carry out calculations, adding, subtracting,
multiplying and dividing. The ALU also carries out comparisons
which answers questions such as, 'is the number 'A' greater, less
than or equal to the number 'B'.
Another name for comparing two numbers is a 'logical operation'.

REGISTERS
Register are sometimes referred to as the Immediate Access Store
The section of high speed memory within the CPU that stores data
to be processed.
There are registers within the CPU that perform very specific jobs
such as:
PC Program Counter: holds the address in memory of the next
instruction
CIR Current Instruction Register: Holds the current instruction to
be executed

INTRODUCTION RUNNING
A PROGRAM
Software programs are sets of instructions. For a CPU to execute
these instructions, each one must first be translated into
machine code simplebinarycodes that activate parts of the
CPU.
The CPU only performs a few basic functions:
performing mathematical operations like addition and subtraction
moving data from one memory location to another
making decisions and jumps to a new set of instructions based on
those decisions
A piece of software, such as a game orweb browser, combines
these functions to perform more complex tasks.

MAIN PARTS OF A CPU

BREAK DOWN OF INTERNAL

COMPONENTS
TheALUcarries out calculations and makes decisions on the data sent to the
processor
The Control Unit, which is also called the controller, controls data moving
through the processor, and controls the timing of operations and the instructions
sent to the processor and theperipheral devices. The CU directs the system to
carry out program instructions. It does the fetching, decoding, and managing of
instructions.
Registersare also called internal memory or immediate access memory stores.
A register is a small amount of fast temporary memory within the processor
where the ALU or the CU can store and change values needed to execute
instructions.
Different processors have different sets of registers. One important register is
theprogram counter. This keeps track of the running order of the instructions
and shows which instruction in the program is due to be executed next.

FETCH-DECODE-EXECUTE
CYCLE
The main job of theCPUis toexecuteprograms using thefetchdecode-execute cycle(also known as theinstruction cycle).
This cycle begins as soon as you turn on a computer.
To execute a program, the program code is copied from secondary
storage into the main memory. The CPU'sprogram counteris set
to the memory location where the first instruction in the program
has been stored, and execution begins. The program is now
running.
In a program, eachmachine codeinstruction takes up a slot in the
main memory. These slots (or memory locations) each have
aunique memory address. The program counter stores the
address of each instruction and tells the CPU in what order they
should be carried out.

FETCH-DECODE-EXECUTE
CYCLE
When a program is being executed, the CPU performs the fetchdecode-execute cycle, which repeats over and over again until
reaching the STOP instruction

Summary of the fetch-decode-execute cycle

The processor checks the program counter to see
which instruction to run next.
The program counter gives an address value in the
memory of where the next instruction is.
The processor fetches the instruction value from this
memory location.
Once the instruction has been fetched, it needs to be
decoded and executed. For example, this could involve
taking one value, putting it into the ALU, then taking a
different value from aregisterand adding the two
together.
Once this is complete, the processor goes back to the
program counter to find the next instruction.

MEMORY OVERVIEW
Memoryis the area where the computer stores or remembers data. Memory provides
theCPUwith itsinstructions. There are different types of memory, and each one plays
an important role in the running of a computer system. Memory is sometimes
calledprimary memory.
Memory is eithervolatileornon-volatile. Volatile memory only stores information to run
programs while the computer is on. It is reset and emptied once the computer is turned
off. Volatile memory requires electricity to store data usingtransistorsandcapacitors.
There is a key difference between memory and storage. Programs are kept on a storage
device and copied into the computer's memory before they areexecuted. Storage is also
calledsecondary storage.
Storage andread only memory (ROM)use non-volatile memory to retain data - even
when the computer has been switched off. In older computers, paper, punched tape and
floppy disks have been used for non-volatile memory.

MEMORY OVERVIEW
The following are all types ofprimarymemory listed in order of closeness to the
CPU:
registers
cache
RAM
virtual memory
The closer a memory type is to the CPU, the quicker the CPU can access the
instructions and execute them. However, the closer it is to the CPU the smaller
and more expensive it is. Each type of memory is limited by
theirspeed,size,costandpositionin relation to the CPU.

RAM
RAMis the main place for storinginstructionsand data whilst a program is beingexecuted. It
is also called main memory. Program data is copied into RAM before theCPUcan run the
program.
RAM is usually measured ingigabytes. The more gigabytes of RAM a computer has, the more
programs and operations it can handle at the same time.
Typical computers might have the following RAM:
Raspberry Pi: 512 MB (0.5 GB)
smartphone: 1 GB
laptop: 16 GB
games console: 8 GB
Each unique memory location in RAM holds one word of information. Every memory location has a
unique address so that once data has been stored there it can be found again later when it's
needed. RAM also has aword sizemeasured inbitsto indicate the size of the memory locations.

CACHE
Cacheis a small amount of memory which is a part of theCPU- closer to the CPU thanRAM. It is used to
temporarily hold instructionsand data that the CPU is likely to reuse.
The CPUcontrol unitautomatically checks cache for instructions before requesting data from RAM. This
saves fetching the instructions and data repeatedly from RAM a relatively slow process which might
otherwise keep the CPU waiting. Transfers to and from cache take less time than transfers to and from RAM.
The more cache there is, the more data can be stored closer to the CPU.
Cache isgradedas Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2) and Level 3 (L3):
L1is usually part of the CPU chip itself and is both the smallest and the fastest to access. Its size is often
restricted to between 8KBand 64 KB.
L2andL3caches are bigger thanL1. They are extra caches built between the CPU and the RAM. Sometimes
L2 is built into the CPU with L1. L2 and L3 caches take slightly longer to access than L1. The more L2 and L3
memory available, the faster a computer can run.
Not a lot of physical space is allocated for cache. There is more space for RAM, which is usually larger and
less expensive.
Each CPUcorehas its own L1 cache, but may share L2 and L3 caches.

ROM
ROM (read only memory) is aflash memorychip that contains a
small amount ofnon-volatile memory. Non-volatile means that
its contents cannot be changed and it retains its memory after the
computer is turned off.
ROM contains theBIOSwhich is thefirmwarefor the
motherboard. The BIOS contains thebootstrap the program
which takes the computer through steps that lead up to the loading
of the operating system (OS). It happens between turning on the
power and the computer beeping to say it is starting to load the
OS. This process is known asPOST(power on self test) on a PC.
Theboot sequenceis the computer's initial start-up process. After
the boot, the OS controls theCPUand supplies the programs to

VIRTUAL MEMORY
Virtual memory is a section ofvolatilememory created temporarily on thestoragedrive.
It is created when a computer is running many processes at once andRAMis running low.
Theoperating systemmakes part of the storage drive available to use as RAM. Virtual
memory is much slower than main memory because processing power is being taken up by
moving data around, rather than just executing instructions. The guide on
operating systemsexplains how the OS manages memory.
Latency is increased when the computer needs to use virtual memory.
Swapping(also called paging) is the process the OS uses to move data between RAM and
virtual memory. The OS moves data from processes that are not immediately needed out of
the RAM and stores them in virtual memory. It copies the data back into RAM when the
process is needed again.
Using virtual memory slows the computer down because copying to a hard disk takes much
longer than reading and writing RAM.

GRAPHICS HARDWARE
Most computers have a CPU and a separate graphics processing
unit (GPU) for images. The GPU can be around 10 times faster than
the CPU. It is optimised to produce high-quality 3D graphics for
games and films. The GPU is responsible for handling images and
frees up the CPU to do all other tasks.
The GPU has its own memory to store data and instruction in called
video memory. Modern GPUs have between 1GB and 8GBs of
video memory.

SOUND HARDWARE
Sound is produced by an audio processor. The audio processor is
often found integrated on the motherboard but better ones can be
bought as expansion cards.
As sound is being processed by the audio processor this frees up
the CPU to do other things.

HEAT DISPERSAL SYSTEMS

A computer has a few different ways to disperse (get rid of) heat.
The cooler the computer is kept the faster it is able to run.
Heat Sinks: large block like structure with fins made from good thermal conducting materials such
as silver, gold, copper or aluminium alloy. The CPU istouching the heat sink (usually aided by
thermal paste) and heat moves through conduction from the CPU to heatsink.
Fans: Most computers have several fans. Case fans help blow air out of the case. The CPU and GPU
have their own fans which are attached to the CPU and GPU chips respectively. These fans help draw
heat away from the processors by moving air
Liquid cooling: Water is piped around the computer system with water blocks being connected to
the CPU, GPU and other components. The water helps disperse the heat generated by the
components. Liquid is cooling is more efficient then air cooling (fans, heatsinks) as water is more
efficient at transferring heat however it is more complex to setup and there is the potential for water
to leak onto the components which will damage them.

STORAGE DEVICES
There are many different kinds of storage devices used by digital devices:
(brackets denote the method in which the data is stored)
Hard disks drives (magnetic)
Floppy disks drive (magnetic)
CD-ROM drives (optical)
DVD-Drives (optical)
Blu-ray Drives (optical)
Solid State Drives (electronic)
Tape Drives (magnetic)
Memory Stick (electronic)

Storage devices are classed as either internal or external.

HARD DRIVES
Hard drives can store large amounts of data - 200GBto 1TBis
common in desktop computers.
A magnetic disk drive consists of a number of platters (disks)
coated in a magnetic material. They spin at around 7200rpm. The
data is encoded intobitsand written onto the surface as a series
of changes in the direction of the magnetisation. The data is read
by detecting the changes in direction.

FLASH MEMORY
Flash memory is a type of non-volatileROMmemory
calledEEPROM(electronically erasable programmable read only
memory). This is a form of static RAM.
USB memory sticks and memory cards are compact forms of flash
memory used with cameras,smartphonesandtabletcomputers.

SOLID STATE DRIVE

The internal storage of a computer can use a solid state drive
(SSD), which is a much larger piece of flash memory.
Flash memory is solid. There are no moving parts, unlike the
spinning disc inside a magnetic drive. A SSD uses microscopic
electronic switches to store data.
Millions oftransistorsare either on or off and remain so as long as
electricity is applied to the system. SSDs use switches
calledfloating gate transistors. These create a special cage (the
gate) that traps theelectronflow within it. This gate effect
continues whether there is electricity in the system or not, and so
storage remains when the power is removed.

SSD VS HDD

SSDs vs HDDs
This table sets out some of the advantages and disadvantages of solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs):

Criteria

Difference between SSD and HDD

Price

SSDs are about 10 times more expensive than HDDs

per MB

Power

HDDs uses about 3 times more battery power than

SSDs

Capacity

SSDs are generally no larger than 512 GB but HDDs go

up to 4 TB

Speed

SSDs are almost twice as fast at loading up and

copying files

Noise

SSDs are silent whereas HDDs make spinning disc

sounds

Reliability

Both are highly reliable forms of storage but the

magnetic disc is more vulnerable to knocks as it has
moving parts

OPTICAL STORAGE
CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs are forms ofoptical storage. They are
a useful lightweight media for transporting data and programs.
Data is written onto the disc by a laser and is read from the disc by
another laser. The discs are cheap, but they are vulnerable to
scratches. They cannot store as much data as a hard drive. A CD
stores up to 800MB, a DVD holds up to 4.7GBand aBlu-rayholds
up to 50 GB.
You need to have a CD, DVD or Blu-ray writer on your computer to
write information to the discs. CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs are useful
for creating film or music discs which are compatible with hardware
such as DVD players.

TAPE STORAGE
Big businesses and science projects, which process thousands of
bytesof data every second, often use tape storage to back up
their data. It is a very cheap and reliable way to store large
amounts of data.

COMPUTER PERFORMANCE
FACTORS
CPU, memory andbusspeeds will all affect the overall speed of a computer. If one is significantly slower,
then it will slow down the others. We often refer to the slowest component as the bottle neck i.e. other
components have to wait for the slowest component before they can continue processing data.
Clock Speed: Theclock speed- also known as clock rate - indicates how fast the CPU can run. This is
measured inmegahertz(mHz) orgigahertz(gHz) and corresponds with how manyinstructioncycles
the CPU can deal with in a second. A 2 gHz CPU performs two billion cycles a second. A faster CPU uses
more energy and creates more heat.
A computer will normally have a maximum clock speed set by default, but it is possible to change this
speed in the computerBIOS. Some people increase a CPU clock speed to try to make their computer run
faster - this is calledoverclocking.
There are limits to how fast a CPU can run and its circuitry cannot always keep up with an overclocked
speed. If the clock tells the CPU to executeinstructions too quickly, the processing will not be completed
before the next instruction is carried out. If the CPU cannot keep up with the pace of the clock, the data
iscorrupted. CPUs can also overheat if they are forced to work faster than they were designed to work.

CACHES
Cacheis a small amount of memory which is a part of theCPU- closer to the CPU thanRAM. It is used to
temporarily holdinstructionsand data that the CPU is likely to reuse.
The CPUcontrol unitautomatically checks cache for instructions before requesting data from RAM. This
saves fetching the instructions and data repeatedly from RAM a relatively slow process which might
otherwise keep the CPU waiting. Transfers to and from cache take less time than transfers to and from RAM.
The more cache there is, the more data can be stored closer to the CPU.
Cache isgradedas Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2) and Level 3 (L3):
L1is usually part of the CPU chip itself and is both the smallest and the fastest to access. Its size is often
restricted to between 8KBand 64 KB.
L2andL3caches are bigger thanL1. They are extra caches built between the CPU and the RAM. Sometimes
L2 is built into the CPU with L1. L2 and L3 caches take slightly longer to access than L1. The more L2 and L3
memory available, the faster a computer can run.
Not a lot of physical space is allocated for cache. There is more space for RAM, which is usually larger and
less expensive.
Each CPUcorehas its own L1 cache, but may share L2 and L3 caches.

MULTI-CORE PROCESSORS
ACPUcan contain one or more processing units. Each unit is called
a core. A core contains anALU,control unitandregisters. It is
common for computers to have two (dual), four (quad) or even
more cores. CPUs with multiple cores have more power to run
multiple programs at the same time.
However, doubling the number of cores will not simply double a
computer's speed. CPU cores have to communicate with each other
through channels and this uses up some of the extra speed.
If the clock speed is 3.0 Ghz and the CPU contains 4 cores then the
total number of operations carried out each second equites to 3
billion X 4 = 12 billion operations.

SYSTEM ON A CHIP (SOC)

A system on a chip or SOC is an integrated circuit that integrates all
the components of a computer (CPU, RAM, ROM, Video, I/O
controllers etc.) into a single chip.
SOCs are used in the construction of mobile devices such as smart
phones and tablets. They are favoured due to their low power
consumption.
Once advantage traditional computers have over SOCSs is that it is
very easy to swap out components to upgrade them. You cannot
upgrade a SOC unless you replace the whole thing which is not
efficient, if say, you only want to upgrade the memory.

CPUS AND GPUS FOR

MOBILE DEVICES
The CPUs and GPUs found in mobile devices are far less powerful
when compared with their desktop counterparts.
Part of the reason is the reduction in size and the need for the
components to require little power to operate.
The larger the CPU the more cores / cache etc. are available and
therefore a greater number of instructions can be executed.
The more complex the CPU however the more power is required to
keep the component operating and this is obviously a very
important consideration when building a mobile device.

COMPARISON BETWEEN
DESKTOP GPU AND MOBILE
GPU
Desktop GPU

Mobile GPU

96 giga pixels per second

3.6 giga pixels per second

8000 transistors
ALUs

128
1000MHz

450MHz

Shaders

1024 shaders

32 shaders

Power

250 Watts

COMPUTER BUSES
A bus in computing is a term given for a communication channel
(bunch of wires) that allows data to travel from one part of the
computer to another.
There are many buses inside a computer with the main one called
the system bus or Front Side Bus.
The system bus connects the processor to main memory and the
GPU.
All buses can be subdivided further and contain:
Data bus channel data is sent down
Address bus channel memory addresses are sent down
Control bus channel control signals are sent down normally from
the CPU

BUSES

ANALOGUE AND DIGITAL

DATA
An analogue signal is a continuous signal that changes value
smoothly. Theoretically any value can be represented by an
analogue signal. Analogue signals exist in nature; sound waves and
light waves are analogue.

DIGITAL SIGNAL
A digital signal is a signal that has discrete values only as opposed
to analogue signals which have continuously changing values.
The most common form of digital data is binary which means the
data simply has two values namely 0 and 1.
Digital signals are understood by computers and other digital
devices:

CONVERTING FROM
ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL
SIGNALS AND VICE VERSA
Computers can only deal with binary or digital data, whereas much
of the data collected by sensors is analogue data.
An ADC converts the analogue data into digital data so that the
computer can process and store the data.
The quality of an Analogue-to-digital converter is determined by
how many bits are used to represent the largest analogue value it
can accept. For instance a 16 bit ADC can theoretically tell the
difference between 65,536 discrete levels.

MODEM
A modem is a an analogue to digital converter.
Data is sent over a telephone wire as an analogue signal (sound
wave) and is demodulated at the receiving end into a digital signal
that a computer can understand and manipulate. The opposite
happens when data is sent from a computer; it is modulated by
modem and sent as an analogue signal.

BINARY NOTATION
Computers only understand binary; it is the language of computers
Binary is represented as a 0 or 1; 0 is off 1 is on. Another way of
representing this is as an electrical pulse; 0 no pulse, 1 pulse.
A bit is the smallest piece of data a computer can store. A bit is
either a 0 or a 1.
The circuits in a computer's processor are made up of billions of
transistors. A transistor is a tiny switch that is activated by the
electronic signals it receives.The digits 1 and 0 used in binary
reflect the on and off states of a transistor.

BINARY NOTATION
A bit by itself does not store enough data for them to very useful so
bits are grouped together to forms bytes:
Bit = 0 or 1
Byte = 8 bits e.g. 01101110
Kilobytes = 1,000 bytes or 1 thousand bytes
Megabytes = 1,000,000 bytes or 1 million bytes
Gigabytes 1,000,000,000 bytes or 1 billion bytes

WORD LENGTH
The word length is the size in bits of the natural unit of data used
by processor. If you have a 32 bit system the word size will be 32
bits. If you have a 64 bit system the word size will be 64 bits.
The size of the word length matches many of the computers
internal systems and structures so for example the size of the
registers inside the CPU will be 32 bit or 64 bit. The largest amount
of data that cab be transferred to and from memory in a single
operation will match the word length of the computer system.

Data in a computer
Data in a computer is all in bytes
A byte is made from eight bits, each either 1 or 0
e.g. 01000001
A byte has 256 different combinations of 1s and 0s
Everything in a computer has millions of places which
can be one of two states:
RAM electricity or no electricity
HDD magnetised north or south
DVD reflect laser or not reflect
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Copying permitted for purchasing
institution only.

CHARACTERS IN BINARY
FORMAT
Characters are the letters,
numbers and punctuation we
use for typing and data entry
into computers.
Characters are recognised in
binary format inside a
computer.
ASCII (American Standard
Code for Information
Interchange) is a very
common standard for this.
ASCII 65=A, 66=B, etc.

Converting numbers into binary

1 Write column headings for end-result binary
number:
128
15

64

32

16

Converting numbers into binary

2 Starting on the left, write a 0 under each
column heading that is bigger than the
whole number:

15

128

64

32

16

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Converting numbers into binary

3 Write a 1 under the biggest column heading
that is smaller than the whole number:

15

128

64

32

16

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Converting numbers into binary

4 Take column heading away from the whole
number. This is the new whole number.

15

128

64

32

16

1
15 8 = 7

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Converting numbers into binary

5 Repeat from step 3 until conversion
completed.

15

128

64

32

16

74=3 32=1

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