Basic structure of
computers
Computer organization
It describes the functions of
various hardware components
of digital computer and the
interconnections to achieve
architectural specifications. The
organization attributes include
the hardware details
transparent to the programmer
such as control signals,
interface between the computer
and peripherals and memory
technology used. Computer
hardware consists of electronic
circuits,storage
media,electromechanical
equipment and commn.facilities
Computer architecture : It refers to
instruction set, no. of bits used for
data representation, I/O mechanism
and addressing techniques used for
memory. Deals with selection of
functional units such as
processor and memory and how
they shoud be interconnected in a
computer system It deals more on
design aspects.
Both hardware and software design
aspects of various computer
components are to be considered to
achieve a good understanding of
computer systems.
 Computer types
Digital computer is a fast
electronic calculating
machine.
It accepts digitized
information, processes as
per the list of stored
instructions and produces
the resulting output
information
List of instructions are
called computer
program
Internal storage is called
computer memory
Computers are of different types that
differ widely in size, cost,
computational power and intended
use
PCs are used in homes, schools and
business offices which comes under
desktop computer
Portable notebook computers are a
compact version of he PC
Workstations have graphics
input/output capability, have
significantly more computational
power than PCs but with the size of
PCs
 Computer types
A range of large and very
powerful computer systems
exist beyond workstations
Enterprise systems and
servers comes at the low end
of the range and super
computers at the high end.
Enterprise systems or
mainframes are used for
business data processing in
medium to large corporations
Servers contain sizable
database storage units and are
capable of handling large
volume of requests to access
the data.
In many cases servers are widely
accessible to the education, business
and personal user communities. The
requests and response are usually
transported over Internet
communication facilities
Supercomputers are used for the
large- scale numerical calculations
required in applications such as
weather forecasting and aircraft
design and simulation
In enterprise systems, servers and
supercomputers, the functional units,
including the multiple processors,
may consist of a number of separate
and often large units
 Functional units
Input,memory,arithmetic and logic,
output and control units are the main
functional units.
Machine Instructions: 1.govern the
transfer of information within the
computer as well as between the
computers and its I/O devices 2.
Specify the arithmetic and logic
operations to be performed
A list of instructions that perform a
task is called a program.
Data: Data are numbers and
encoded characters, that are used as
operands in instructions. It is also,
often used to mean any digital
information. For example, a source
program is data for a compiler which
coverts it into machine
instructions( object program}
Information must be encoded into a
suitable format so that it can be
handled by a computer.
Each number ,character or
instruction is encoded as a string of
binary digits called bits, each
having one of two possible
values, 0 or 1.
Numbers are represented in
positional binary notation or BCD
format
Alphanumeric characters are
expressed in terms of binary codes.
ASCII and EBCDIC are two most
widely used codes.
The computer is completely
controlled by stored program except
for external interupttion from
operator or I/O devices.
Basic functional units of a
computer

Arithmetic
Input and
Lgic unit
Memory

Output Control

I/O Processor
 Memory Unit
It store programs and
data. Primary storage
and secondary storage
are 2 classes of storage
Primary storage: It is
fast memory.It contains a
large number of
semiconductor storage
cells that is capable of
storing one bit of
information.These cells
are processed in groups
of fixed size called words
The memory is organized so that one
word of n bits can be stored or
retrieved from memory in one basic
operation .
A given word is accessed by
specifying its address and issuing a
control command.
Typical word-lengths range from 16
to 64 bits.
Small machines consists of 10s of
millions of words. Medium and large
machines normally have many 10s
or 100s of millons of words
Memory unit or primary
storage
Memory in which any
location can be reached
in a short and fixed
amount of time after
specifying its address is
called random-access
memory(RAM). The
time required to access
one word is called the
memory access time.
It typically ranges from
a few ns to 100 ns for
modern RAM units.
The memory of a computer is
normally implemented as a memory
hierarchy of 3 or 4 levels of
semiconductor RAM units with
different speeds and sizes.
The small, fast, RAM units are called
caches .They are tightly coupled
with the processor and is often
provided on the processor chip itself
to achieve high performance
The largest and slowest unit is
referred to as the main memory
Secondary storage And I/O
Although primary storage
is essential, it tends to be
expensive. When large
amounts of data and many
programs are to be stored,
cheaper secondary
storage is used
particularly for information
that is infrequently used.A
wide range of secondary
storage is available,
including magnetic disks
and tapes and optical
disks( CD-ROMS)
Input unit: Keyboard is well known.
Others include joysticks, trackballs
and mouse are used as graphic input
devices in conjunction with displays.
Microphone is used along with ADC.
Output Unit:
Most familiar example is printer.
Printer employs mechanical impact
heads, ink jet streams, or
photocopying techniques as in laser
printers to perform printing. Printers
are capable of printing 10000 lines
per minute.
Some units such as graphic displays
provide both an output function and
an input function. Hence in many
cases the term I/O is used .
Arithmetic and logic unit
( ALU )
Most computer operations are
executed in the ALU of the
processor. Arithmetic and logic
operation is performed by the ALU
OUTPUT UNIT
by bringing the required operands
into the processor registers. Access It function is to send the processed result
times to registers are faster to outside world.eg. Printer.
than the access time to the Printers employ mechanical impact
fastest cache unit in the heads, ink jet streams or
memory hierarchy. photocopying techniques, as in laser
The control and ALU units are printers, to perform the printing.
many times faster than other Printers can be produced to print 10,000
devices connected to the lines per minute. This is tremendous
computer system. This enable a speed for a mechanical device but
single processor to control a no: of still very slow when compared to
external devices such as keyboards, electronic speed of processor unit.
displays magnetic and optical disks,
sensors and mechanical controllers.
 Control unit
It co-ordinates the operation of ALU,
I/O , and memory. It sends control
signals to other units and senses Summary of computer operations
their states.
I/O transfers are controlled by the The computer accepts information in the
instructions of I/O programs that form of programs and data through
identify the devices involved and the an input unit and stores it in the
information to be transferred. But the memory.
actual timing signals that govern
the transfers are generated by Information stored in the memory is
the control circuits. fetched, under program control, into
an arithmetic and logic unit, where it
Data transfers between the processor is processed.
and memory are also controlled by
the control unit through timing signals. Processed information leaves the
computer through an output unit.
Much of the control circuitry is
physically distributed throughout the All activities inside the machine are
machine. A large set of control lines directed by the control unit
carries the signals used for timing and
synchronization of events in all units
Basic operational concepts
Performing a task
Store the program in the memory; fetch
the individual instructions from memory
to processor for execution.
Instructions with memory access and ALU
operation are combined in one
instruction.
Ex: ADD LOCA, R0 1.Instn. Fetch from
memory 2. fetch operand from LOCA
from memory. 3. Add operand to
contents of R0 and store the result into
R0.Modern computers perform it in two
instns.
That is load LOCA , R1 and Add R1, R0
Process of execution of these instructions
Few operational details of processor
operation with memory
MAR,MDR,IR,PC and registers
Interrupt Signal and interrupt-service
routine
BUS STRUCTURE: For reasonable speed of
operation, a computer must be
organized so that all of its units handle
one full word of data at a given time.
During data transfer between units, all bits
in a data word are transferred in
parallel.That is, the bits are transferred
simultaneously over many lines, one bit
per line.
A group of lines that serve as a
connecting path for several devices
is called a bus.Bus lines carry data,
address and control information
The simplest way to interconnect functional
units is to use a single bus.
Buffer registers to smooth out the
differences in timing among processors,
memories and external devices. Only
two units use the bus at any given time
Connections between processor and
memory

Memory

MAR MDR
Control

PC R0
R1
.
ALU
IR ALU
NRgen-i
Control
general purpose
Registers
 SYSTEM 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 the user
Controlling I/O units to receive input
information and produce output results
Translating programs from source form
prepared by the user into object form
consisting of machine instructions
Linking and running user- written
application programs with existing
standard library routines, such as
numerical computation packages
Functions of compiler, text editor and
operating system
OS is a large program, or
actually a collection of routines,
that is used to control the sharing
of processor time 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.
Multiprogramming or multitasking
Time Line Diagram
 PERFORMANCE
Speed of execution of programs is a
performance measure
The design of computer hardware
and machine language instructions,
affect the speed of program
execution
Compiler design also affect the
performance
For best performance, it is
necessary to design the complier,
the machine instruction set and the
hardware in a co-ordinated way
Elapsed time, the total time
required to execute a program is a
measure of performance of the
entire computer system. It is
affected by the speed of the
processor, disk and the printer
The sum of the periods in which the
processor is active is called
processor time needed to execute
the program.
Processor time depends on the
hardware involved in the execution of
instructions .This hardware comprises
processor and the memory which are
connected by a bus.
If the data and instructions are
available in the processor chip in
cache memory, then the instruction
execution is faster
To execute a machine
instructions, the processor divides
the actions to be performed into a
sequence of basic steps, such that
each step is completed in one clock
cycle. The clock rates ranges from few
100 MHz to a few GHz.
BASIC PERFORMANCE EQUATION

T = NxS/R is often
referred to as the
performance equation
T is the processor time
required to execute a
program made in HL
language.
N is the number of
machine language
S is the average number of basic
steps needed to execute one
machine instruction, where each
basic step is completed in one clock
cycle
R is the clock rate in cycles per
second.
To achieve high performance, the

computer designer must find ways to

instructions in the object reduce N and S and increase R
program which was
made using a compiler
on source program
 PIPELINING AND SUPERSCALAR
OPERATION
A substantial improvement in performance
can be achieved by overlapping the
execution of successive instructions,
using a technique called pipelining.
Ex. Add r1, r2,r3 ; this causes r3=r2+r2;
The process is as below
R1 and r2 are first transferred to the inputs
of ALU; Addition operation is done; the sum
is transferred to r3.Pipelining can be done
as below.
Processor can bring the next instruction fro
m memory while addition is being done; if
the next instruction also uses Alu, the
operands for the same can be transferred
to ALU inputs during the same time, the
sum of add instruction is transferred to r3.
In ideal case maximum degree of
overlapping is possible when execution
proceeds at the rate of one instruction
completed in each clock cycle. Individual
instructions still require several clock
cycles to complete.
A high degree of concurrency can
be achieved if multiple
instructions pipelines are
implemented in the processor.
This is done by using multiple
functional units and thereby creating
parallel paths to execute different
instructions in parallel
The above scheme causes the
execution of several instructions in
every clock cycles. This mode of
operation is called superscalar
execution. If it can be sustained for a
long time during program execution,
the effective value of S can be
reduced to less than one.
Clock rate can be increased by using
better IC technology
 CISC vs RISC
CISC: RISC:
1. Uses large no: of instns. And large variety of
1. Uses relatively less no of instn. and few
addressing modes addressing modes.
2. Has variable lenth instruction formats
2. Has fixed length , easily decoded instn.
3. Program length is less
Format
4. No. of instn. formats is more
3. Program length is more
5. Instn. Decoding is complex
4. No. of instn. formats is less
6. Regiser memory management is required

Main memory management is not required 5. Instn decoding is simpler.

6. Regiser memory management is not
required
7. The control logic design is complex 7. Main memory management is required
8. The control logic design is simple
8. Slower computation due to more instructions 9. Faster computation due to less instructions
and addressing modes and addressing modes
9. CISC implements microprogramed control
10. RISC implements hardware control
10. Instruction is executed in multiple clock
cycle 11. Instruction is executed in a single clock
cycle
It support indirect addressing modes
Includes memory to register, memory to memory 12. RISC does not support indirect addressing
alongwith register to register operations. mode
13. Includes only register to register operations
 Performance measurement
Computer designers use performance
estimate, manufacturers use performance
indicators in the marketing process, Buyer
use such data to choose one from many
computer models
Execution time T , is not easy to compute;
clockspeed and various architectural
features are not reliable indicators of
expected performance. Hence computer
performance is measured by benchmark
programs
The performance measure is given by the
time to execute a given benchmark
program.
Real application program s are used as
benchmark programs. SPEC, a non-profit
organisation, SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
EVALUATION CORPORATION, selects and
publish different application programs for
different application domains, together
with test results for many commercially
available computers
Programs selected range from game
playing, compiler and database
applications to numerically intensive
programs in autophysics and quantum
chemistry. In each case the program is
compiled for the computer under test and
the running time on a real computer is
measured. The same program is compiled
also run on a reference computer
The spec rating is computed as follows
Running time on the ref.
comp.
SPEC rating =
---------------------------------------
running time on the com. Under
test
The test is repeated for all the programs in
the SPEC suit, and the geometric mean of
the program is computed.
Multiprocessors and
Multicomputers
Multiprocessor systems
contain a no of processor
units and provide high
performance. High performance can be achieved
They execute different by interconnecting group of complete
application tasks in parallel computers
or subtasks of a large task in The computers have normally have
parallel access to their own memory units
They are called shared The tasks executed by these
computers exchange messages over
memory multiprocessor a communication network
systems as all processors These computers are called message
usually have access to all of passing mlticomputers
the memory in such systems
Systems are of increased
complexity and cost and use
more complex
interconnection network