E- Lecture

Computer Architecture

By
H R Choudhary (Asstt. Professor)
Department of CSE
Engineering College Ajmer

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Topics to be covered
Memory Organization
What do you mean by Memory Hierarchy ?
Auxiliary Memory
Main Memory

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Memory Hierarchy

A memory unit is an essential component in any digital computer

since it is needed for storing programs and data.

Typically, a memory unit can be classified into two categories:

The memory unit that establishes direct communication with the

CPU is called Main Memory. The main memory is often referred
to as RAM (Random Access Memory).
The memory units that provide backup storage are called Auxiliary
Memory. For instance, magnetic disks and magnetic tapes are the
most commonly used auxiliary memories.
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
 Auxiliary Memory
Auxiliary memory is known as the lowest-cost, highest-capacity
and slowest-access storage in a computer system. Auxiliary
memory provides storage for programs and data that are kept
for long-term storage or when not in immediate use. The most
common examples of auxiliary memories are magnetic tapes
and magnetic disks.

A magnetic disk is a digital computer memory that uses a

magnetization process to write, rewrite and access data. For
example, hard drives, zip disks, and floppy disks.

Magnetic tape is a storage medium that allows for data

archiving, collection, and backup for different kinds of data.
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
Main Memory
The main memory in a computer system is often referred to as
Random Access Memory (RAM). This memory unit
communicates directly with the CPU and with auxiliary
memory devices through an I/O processor.

The programs that are not currently required in the main

memory are transferred into auxiliary memory to provide
space for currently used programs and data.

I/O Processor
The primary function of an I/O Processor is to manage the data
transfers between auxiliary memories and the main memory.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

Cache Memory
The data or contents of the main memory that are used
frequently by CPU are stored in the cache memory so that
the processor can easily access that data in a shorter time.
Whenever the CPU requires accessing memory, it first
checks the required data into the cache memory. If the data is
found in the cache memory, it is read from the fast memory.
Otherwise, the CPU moves onto the main memory for the
required data.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Main Memory

Main Memory
The main memory acts as the central storage unit in a computer system.
It is a relatively large and fast memory which is used to store programs
and data during the run time operations.

The primary technology used for the main memory is based on

semiconductor integrated circuits. The integrated circuits for the main
memory are classified into two major units.

RAM (Random Access Memory) integrated circuit chips

ROM (Read Only Memory) integrated circuit chips
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
RAM integrated circuit chips
The RAM integrated circuit chips are further classified into two
possible operating modes, static and dynamic.

The primary compositions of a static RAM are flip-flops that store the
binary information. The nature of the stored information is volatile, i.e.
it remains valid as long as power is applied to the system. The static
RAM is easy to use and takes less time performing read and write
operations as compared to dynamic RAM.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

The dynamic RAM exhibits the binary information in
the form of electric charges that are applied to
capacitors. The capacitors are integrated inside the chip
by MOS transistors. The dynamic RAM consumes less
power and provides large storage capacity in a single
memorychip.

RAM chips are available in a variety of sizes and are

used as per the system requirement. The following
block diagram demonstrates the chip interconnection in
a 128 * 8 RAM chip.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
A 128 * 8 RAM chip has a memory capacity of 128 words of
eight bits (one byte) per word. This requires a 7-bit address
and an 8-bit bidirectional data bus.

The 8-bit bidirectional data bus allows the transfer of data
either from memory to CPU during a read operation or from
CPU to memory during a write operation.

The read and write inputs specify the memory operation, and
the two chip select (CS) control inputs are for enabling the
chip only when the microprocessor selects it.

The bidirectional data bus is constructed using three-state
buffers.

The output generated by three-state buffers can be placed in
one of the three possible states which include a signal
equivalent to logic 1, a signal equal to logic 0, or a high-
impedance state.
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College
Ajmer
 The following function table specifies the operations of a 128 * 8 RAM chip.

From the functional table, we can conclude that the unit is in operation only when CS1 = 1
and CS2 = 0. The bar on top of the second select variable indicates that this input is enabled
when it is equal to 0.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 ROM integrated circuit

The primary component of the main memory is RAM integrated circuit chips,
but a portion of memory may be constructed with ROM chips.

A ROM memory is used for keeping programs and data that are permanently
resident in the computer.

Apart from the permanent storage of data, the ROM portion of main memory is
needed for storing an initial program called a bootstrap loader. The primary
function of the bootstrap loader program is to start the computer software
operating when power is turned on.
ROM chips are also available in a variety of sizes and are also used as per the
system requirement. The following block diagram demonstrates the chip
interconnection in a 512 * 8 ROM chip.
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
A ROM chip has a similar organization as a RAM chip.
However, a ROM can only perform read operation; the data
bus can only operate in an output mode.

The 9-bit address lines in the ROM chip specify any one of
the 512 bytes stored in it.

The value for chip select 1 and chip select 2 must be 1 and 0
for the unit to operate. Otherwise, the data bus is said to be
in a high-impedance state.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Thank You

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Auxiliary Memory
Auxiliary Memory
An Auxiliary memory is known as the lowest-cost, highest-capacity
and slowest-access storage in a computer system. It is where programs
and data are kept for long-term storage or when not in immediate use.
The most common examples of auxiliary memories are magnetic tapes
and magnetic disks.

Magnetic Disks
A magnetic disk is a type of memory constructed using a circular plate
of metal or plastic coated with magnetized materials. Usually, both
sides of the disks are used to carry out read/write operations.
However, several disks may be stacked on one spindle with read/write
head available on each surface.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 The following image shows the structural representation for a magnetic disk.

The memory bits are stored in the magnetized surface in spots along the
concentric circles called tracks.The concentric circles (tracks) are
commonly divided into sections called sectors.
H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer
 Magnetic Tape

Magnetic Tape
Magnetic tape is a storage medium that allows data archiving,
collection, and backup for different kinds of data. The
magnetic tape is constructed using a plastic strip coated with
a magnetic recording medium.

The bits are recorded as magnetic spots on the tape along

several tracks. Usually, seven or nine bits are recorded
simultaneously to form a character together with a parity bit

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Magnetic Tape

Magnetic tape units can be halted, started to move forward or

in reverse, or can be rewound. However, they cannot be
started or stopped fast enough between individual characters.
For this reason, information is recorded in blocks referred to
as records.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

 Associative Memory
An associative memory can be considered as a memory unit whose stored data
can be identified for access by the content of the data itself rather than by an
address or memory location.

Associative memory is often referred to as Content Addressable Memory

(CAM).

When a write operation is performed on associative memory, no address or

memory location is given to the word. The memory itself is capable of finding
an empty unused location to store the word.

On the other hand, when the word is to be read from an associative memory, the
content of the word, or part of the word, is specified. The words which match
the specified content are located by the memory and are marked for reading.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

The following diagram shows the block representation of an Associative memory.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

From the block diagram, we can say that an associative memory consists
of a memory array and logic for 'm' words with 'n' bits per word.

The functional registers like the argument register A and key register K
each have n bits, one for each bit of a word. The match register M
consists of m bits, one for each memory word.
The words which are kept in the memory are compared in parallel with
the content of the argument register.
The key register (K) provides a mask for choosing a particular field or
key in the argument word. If the key register contains a binary value
of all 1's, then the entire argument is compared with each memory
word. Otherwise, only those bits in the argument that have 1's in their
corresponding position of the key register are compared. Thus, the
key provides a mask for identifying a piece of information which
specifies how the reference to memory is made.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

The following diagram can represent the relation between the memory
array and the external registers in an associative memory.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer

The cells present inside the memory array are marked by the
letter C with two subscripts. The first subscript gives the
word number and the second specifies the bit position in the
word. For instance, the cell Cij is the cell for bit j in word i.

A bit Aj in the argument register is compared with all the bits

in column j of the array provided that Kj = 1. This process is
done for all columns j = 1, 2, 3......, n.
If a match occurs between all the unmasked bits of the
argument and the bits in word i, the corresponding bit Mi in
the match register is set to 1. If one or more unmasked bits
of the argument and the word do not match, Mi is cleared to
0.

H R Choudhary Asstt Professor Dept. Of CSE, Engineering College Ajmer