CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE NO.

1 Introduction 1
2 Central processing unit 2
2.1 How CPU performs? 2
2.2 CPU Components 3
2.3 Measuring speed 3
2.3.1.1 Bit Width 3
2.3.2 Clock Cycle 4
2.3.3 Execution core 4
3 Arithmetic Logic unit 6
3.1 Logical and fixed point binary operations 7
3.2 Logical operations 8
4 Control Unit 8
4.1 Types of Control Units 10
4.1.1 Hardwired control unit 10
4.1.2 Micro programmed control unit 10
5 Bus 11
5.1 Bus types 11
5.1.1 The system bus 12
5.1.2 The control bus 12

Conclusion 13

Appendices 14
 1. Introduction

In any computer system, there are three main components:

1) CPU

It is the central processing unit. It process all the data.

2) ALU

ALU is the arithmetic logic unit. It does all the arithmetic calculations.

3) CU

CU is the control unit. It co-ordinates between other units.

4) BUS

The Bus is responsible to transport data to all the components and from all the
components.
 2. CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the brain of the computer--it is the 'compute' in
computer. Modern CPU's are what are called 'integrated chips'. The idea of an
integrated chip is that several processing components are integrated into a single piece
of silicon. Without the CPU, you have no computer. The CPU is composed of thousands
(and soon billions) of transistors.
Each transistor is a set of inputs and one output. When one
or more of the inputs receive electricity, the combined
charge changes the state of the transistor internally and you
get a result out the other side. This simple effect of the
transistor is what makes it possible for the computer to
count and perform logical operations, all of which we call
processing.
A modern computer's CPU usually contains an execution core with two or more
instruction pipelines, a data and address bus, a dedicated arithmetic logic unit (ALU,
also called the math co-processor), and in some cases special high-speed memory for
caching program instructions from RAM.
The CPU's in most PC's and servers are general purpose integrated chips composed of
several smaller dedicated-purpose components which together create the processing
capabilities of the modern computer.

For example, Intel makes a Pentium, while AMD makes the Athlon, and Duron (no
memory cache).

2.1 HOW CPU PERFORMS?

CPU performs its tasks in a cycle of four steps. This cycle is known as machine cycle.
Following are the steps included in machine cycle: -

1) Fetching
Fetching is the process of obtaining program instructions or data from the
memory.
2) Decoding
 Decoding refers to the process of translating instructions into the signals the
computer can execute
3) Executing
Executing is the process of carrying out the commands.
4) Storing
Storing is the process in which results are stored in the memory.

2.2 CPU Components

A lot of components go into building a modern computer processor and just what goes
in changes with every generation as engineers and scientists find new, more efficient
ways to do old tasks.
 Execution Core(s)
 Data Bus
 Address Bus
 Math Co-processor
 Instruction sets / Microcode
 Multimedia extensions
 Registers
 Flags
 Pipelining
 Memory Controller
 Cache Memory (L1, L2 and L3)

2.3 Measuring Speed: Bits, Cycles and Execution Cores

2.3.1 Bit Width
The first way of describing a processor is to say how many bits it processes in a single
instruction or transports across the processor's internal bus in a single cycle (not exactly
correct, but close enough). The number of bits used in the CPU's instructions and
registers and how many bits the buses can transfer simultaneously is usually expressed
an multiples of 8 bits. It is possible for the registers and the bus to have different sizes.
Current chip designs are 64 bit chips (as of 2008).
More bits usually means more processing capability and more speed.
2.3.2 Clock Cycles
The second way of describing a processor is to say how many cycles per second the
chip operates at. This is how many times per second a charge of electricity passes
through the chip. The more cycles, the faster the processor. Currently, chips operate in
the billions of cycles per second range. When you're talking about billions of anything
in computer terms, you're talking about 'giga' something. When you're talking about
how many cycles per second, you are talking about 'hertz'. Putting the two together, you
get gigahertz.

More clock cycles usually means more processing capability and more speed.

2.3.3Execution Cores
The third way of describing a processor is to say how many execution cores are in the
chip. The most advanced chips today have eight execution cores. More execution cores
means you can get more work done at the same time,
but it doesn't necessarily mean a single program will
run faster. To put it another way, a processor with
one execution core might be able to run your MP3
music, your web browser, a graphics program and
that's about where it starts to slow down enough, it's
not worth it running more programs. A system with
a processor with 8 cores could run all that plus ten
more applications without even seeming to slow
down (of course, this assumes you have enough RAM to load all of this software at the
same time). More execution cores means more processing capability, but not necessarily
more speed.

The following table helps you to understand the differences between the different
processors that Intel has introduced over the years.

Clock Data
Name Date Transistors Microns MIPS
speed width
8080 1974 6,000 6 2 MHz 8 bits 0.64
8088 1979 29,000 3 5 MHz 16 bits 0.33
 8-bit bus
80286 1982 134,000 1.5 6 MHz 16 bits 1
80386 1985 275,000 1.5 16 MHz 32 bits 5
80486 1989 1,200,000 1 25 MHz 32 bits 20
32 bits
Pentium 1993 3,100,000 0.8 60 MHz 64-bit 100
bus
32 bits
Pentium II 1997 7,500,000 0.35 233 MHz 64-bit ~300
bus
32 bits
Pentium III 1999 9,500,000 0.25 450 MHz 64-bit ~510
bus
32 bits
Pentium 4 2000 42,000,000 0.18 1.5 GHz 64-bit ~1,700
bus
32 bits
Pentium 4
2004 125,000,000 0.09 3.6 GHz 64-bit ~7,000
"Prescott"
bus

Information about this table:

 The date is the year that the processor was first introduced. Many processors are
re-introduced at higher clock speeds for many years after the original release
date.
 Transistors is the number of transistors on the chip. You can see that the
number of transistors on a single chip has risen steadily over the years.
 Microns is the width, in microns, of the smallest wire on the chip. For
comparison, a human hair is 100 microns thick. As the feature size on the chip
goes down, the number of transistors rises.
 Clock speed is the maximum rate that the chip can be clocked at. Clock speed
will make more sense in the next section.
 Data Width is the width of the ALU. An 8-bit ALU can
add/subtract/multiply/etc. two 8-bit numbers, while a 32-bit ALU can
manipulate 32-bit numbers. An 8-bit ALU would have to execute four
 instructions to add two 32-bit numbers, while a 32-bit ALU can do it in one
instruction. In many cases, the external data bus is the same width as the ALU,
but not always. The 8088 had a 16-bit ALU and an 8-bit bus, while the modern
Pentiums fetch data 64 bits at a time for their 32-bit ALUs.
 MIPS stands for "millions of instructions per second" and is a rough measure of
the performance of a CPU. Modern CPUs can do so many different things that
MIPS ratings lose a lot of their meaning, but you can get a general sense of the
relative power of the CPUs from this column.

3. ARITHMETIC LOGIC UNIT

The computer’s arithmetic/logic unit (ALU) was designed to perform addition,

complementation, and single-bit shift operations on 16-bit binary data, in parallel. The
four basic arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) can
be performed using this ALU and appropriate software routines. Advances in IC
technology have made it practical to implement most of the ALU functions required in
hardware, thereby minimizing the software implementation and increasing the speed.
The majority of modern-day processors use bit-parallel ALUs. It is possible to use a bit-
serial ALU where slow operations are acceptable. For example, in a calculator IC, serial
arithmetic may be adequate due to the slow nature of human interaction with the
calculator. In building processors on single ICs, a considerable amount of silicon ‘‘real
estate’’ can be conserved by using a serial ALU. The silicon area thus saved can be used
in implementing other complex operations that may be required.

Logical Operation Meaning

AND Perform the logical ANDing of two operands
OR Perform the logical ORing of two operands
XOR Perform the XORing of two operands
NOT Perform the complement of an operand
COMPARE Perform logical comparison of two operands and set flag
accordingly
SHIFT Perform logical shift (right or left) of the content of a register
ROTATE Perform logical shift (right or left) with wraparound of the
content of a register
 Some common logical operation

The most common operands an ALU deals with are: binary (fixed- and floating-point),
decimal, and character strings. We will describe the ALU enhancements that facilitate
fixed-point binary and logical data manipulation in the next section.It is now common
to see either multiple functional units within an ALU or multiple ALUs within the CPU.
Figure below shows   a representative   block   diagram   of   an   ALU   of   a
microcomputer.

3.1 LOGICAL AND FIXED-POINT BINARY OPERATIONS

ALU is designed to perform a single-bit right or left shift. Other types of shift
operations are useful in practice. The parallel binary adder used in ASC ALU is slow,
since the carry has to ripple from the least significant bit to the most significant bit
before the addition is complete. Several algorithms for fast addition have been devised.
We will describe one such algorithm
in this section. Various multiplication and division schemes have been devised; we will
describe the popular ones.

3.2 Logical Operations

The single-bit shifts performed by the ASC ALU are called arithmetic shift operations
since the results of shift conformed to the 2s complement arithmetic used by the ALU.
In practical ALUs, it is common to see the following additional types of arithmetic shift
operations:

Logical operations such as AND, OR, EXCLUSIVE OR, and NOT are also useful ALU
functions. The operands for these operations could be the contents of registers and/or
memory locations.

4. CONTROL UNIT

The control unit maintains order within the computer system and directs the flow of
traffic (operations) and data. The control unit selects one program statement at a time
from the program storage area, interprets the statement, and sends the appropriate
electronic impulses to the arithmetic logic unit and storage section to cause them to
carry out the instruction. The control unit does not perform the actual processing
operations on the data. Specifically, the control unit manages the operations of the CPU,
be it a single chip microprocessor or a fill-size mainframe. Like a traffic director, it
decides when to start and stop (control and timing), what to do (program instructions),
where to keep information (memory), and with what devices to communicate (I/O). It
controls the flow of all data entering and leaving the computer. It accomplishes this by
communicating or interfacing with the arithmetic logic unit, memory, and I/O areas. It
provides the computer with the ability to function under program control. Depending on
the design of the computer, the CPU can also have the capability to function under
manual control through man/machine interfacing. The control unit consists of several
basic logically defined areas. These logically defined areas work closely with each
other. Timing in a computer regulates the flow of signals that control the operation of
the computer. The instruction and control portion makes up the decision-making and
memory-type functions.

Block diagram of Control Unit

Addressing is the process of locating the operand (specific   information) for a given
operation.  An interrupt is a break in the normal flow of operation of a computer (e.g.,
CTRL  +  ALT  +  DEL). Control memory is a random-access memory (RAM)
consisting of addressable storage registers. Cache memory is a small, high-speed RAM
buffer located between the CPU and main memory; it can increase the speed of the PC.
Read-only memory (ROM) are chips with a set of software instructions supplied by the
manufacturer built into them that enables the computer to perform its I/O operations.
The control unit is also capable of shutting down the computer when the power supply
detects abnormal conditions.
The control unit is the most complex block of computer hardware from a designer’s
point of view. Its function is to generate control signals needed by other blocks of the
machine in a predetermined sequence to bring about the sequence of actions called for
by each instruction.
4.1 Types of Control Units
The function of the control unit is to generate the control signals in the appropriate
sequence to bring about the instruction cycle that corresponds to each instruction in the
program. In ASC an instruction cycle consists of three phases. Each phase in the
instruction cycle is composed of a sequence of micro operations. A micro operation is
one of the following:
1. A simple register transfer operation: the transfer of contents of one register to the
other register.
2. A complex register transfer involving ALU, such as the transfer of the complement of
the contents of a register, the sum of the contents of two registers, etc. to the destination
register.
3. A memory read or write operation. Thus, a machine instruction is composed of a
sequence of micro operations (i.e., a register transfer sequence).
The CU can be implemented in two popular schemes:
4.1.1 Hardwired control unit (HCU)
The outputs (control signals) of the CU are generated by the logic circuitry built of gates
and flip flops.
4.1.2 Micro programmed control unit (MCU)
The sequence of micro operations corresponding to each machine instruction are stored
in a read-only memory called control ROM (CROM). The sequence of micro operations
is called the micro program, and the micro program consists of microinstructions. A
microinstruction corresponds to one or more micro operations, depending on the CROM
storage format.
The MCU scheme is more flexible than the HCU scheme because in it the meaning of
an instruction can be changed by changing the microinstruction sequence corresponding
to that instruction, and the instruction set can be extended simply by including a new
ROM containing the corresponding micro operation sequences. Hardware changes to
the control unit thus are minimal in this implementation. In an HCU, any such change to
the instruction set requires substantial changes to the hardwired logic. HCUs, however,
are generally faster than MCUs and are used where the control unit must be fast. Most
of the more recent machines have micro programmed control units.
Among the machines that have an MCU, the degree to which the micro program can be
changed by the user varies from machine to machine. Some do not allow the user to
change the micro program, some allow partial changes and additions (for example,
machines with writable control store), and some do not have an instruction set of their
own and allow the user to micro program the complete instruction set suitable for his
application. This latter type of machine is called a soft machine.

5. Bus

The functional units are interconnected to enable data transport (e.g., write CPU register
data content to a certain address in memory)
• The unit ←→unit interconnections are referred to as a bus
– Bus: a bundle of conductors (wires/tracks) layed out on the motherboard
(Bus width = number of conductors in bundle)
• Data and addresses are communicated on separate data and address
Busses (history: e.g., Intel 8086 used shared data/address bus)
Examples

CPU Address Bus Width Data Bus Width

Intel Pentium IV 32 64
Intel Itanium 44 64

5.1 Bus types:

1 Data bus (move data)
2 Address bus (select address in memory, select port in I/O unit)
3 Control bus (synchronize units, request action from unit, unit state)
• The busses provide an infrastructure that is shared by all units. There are
No individual unit←→ unit (point-to-point) interconnections
(exception: interrupt request lines)
5.1.2 The System Bus

 The system bus connects the microprocessors to the memory and I/O subsystems
 It is comprised of three major busses: The address bus, the data bus, and the
control bus
 Both address and data busses come in variety of sizes.
 Address busses generally range from 20 to 36 bits
(1 MB address space – 64 GBytes)
 Data busses are either 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits wide
 The control bus on the other hand varies amongst processors. It is a collection of
control signals with which the processor communicates with the rest of the
system

5.1.3 The Control Bus

The following are generally part of the Control Bus:

 Read/Write signal, which specify the direction of data flow

 Byte Enable signals, which allow 16, 32, and 64 bit busses deal with smaller
chunks of data
 Some processors have signalling which identifies between memory and I/O
addresses
 Other signals include interrupt lines, parity lines, bus clock, and status signals

CONCLUSION
CPU
CPU is the brain of the computer. It is the main chip that is fixed on the motherboard.
CPU is also called as microprocessor. CPU reads and executes the program instructions,
perform calculation and make decisions. It is also responsible for storing and retrieving
information on the storage disks or other storage media. It also handles the flow of
information from one part of the computer to another.
ALU
ALU performs the following functions:

 The arithmetic logic unit executes the arithmetic and logical operations.
 Arithmetic operation include Addition, subtract, multiplication and division.
 ALU performs logical operation in which it compares two numbers, letter or
special characters.
 ALU compares the following conditions:

CU

Control unit, controls and co-ordinates among the other components of CPU. It
performs the following functions:

 Sends data and instructions received from input devices to the memory.
 Sends the data and information from memory to the ALU.
 Sends the processed data or information from ALU, back to the memory.
 Transfers the processed data or information from memory to the output unit.

BUS

A bus in computer terminology represents a physical connection used to carry a

signal from one point to another. The signal carried by a bus may represent address,
data, control signal, or power. Typically, a bus consists of a number of connections
running together. Each connection is called a bus line.
APPENDICES

Websites
http://www.intel.com/
http://www.inetdaemon.com/
http://www.tpub.com/

Books
Computer Design And Architecture By Sajjan G. Shiva
Fundamentals of Computer Organization and Architecture By Mostafa Abd-El-Barr &
Hisham El-Rewini