What Is A Computer Bus
What Is A Computer Bus
A computer bus is a communication system within a computer or between computers
that transfers data between different components. The purpose of buses is to reduce
the number of "pathways" needed forcommunication between the components, by
carrying out all communications over a single data channel.
1. Address Bus
A collection of wires used to identify particular location in main memory is
called Address Bus. Or in other words, the information used to describe the
memory locations travels along the address bus.
The address bus transports memory addresses which the processor wants to access
in order to read or write data..
The address bus is unidirectional.
The size of address bus determines how many unique memory locations can be
addressed.
Example:
o A system with 4-bit address bus can address 24 = 16 Bytes of memory.
o A system with 16-bit address bus can address 216 = 64 KB of memory
o A system with 20-bit address bus can address 220 = 1 MB of memory.
2. Data Bus
A collection of wires through which data is transmitted from one part of a
computer to another is called Data Bus.
Data Bus can be thought of as a highway on which data travels within a computer.
The main objective of data bus is transfer of the data between microprocessor
to input/ output devices or memory.
The data bus transfers instructions coming from or going to the processor.
The data bus is bidirectional because the data can flow in either direction from
CPU to memory(or input/output device) or from memory to the CPU.
The size (width) of bus determines how much data can be transmitted at one time.
Example:
o A 16-bit bus can transmit 16 bits of data at a time.
o 32-bit bus can transmit 32 bits at a time.
Control Bus
The connections that carry control information between the CPU and other devices
within the computer is called Control Bus.
The main objective of control bus is all signals controller carried from processor to
other hardware device.
The control bus transports orders and synchonisation signal coming from the
control unit and travelling to all other hardware components
The Control bus is bidirectional because the data can flow in either direction from
CPU to memory(or input/output device) or from memory to the CPU.
it also transmits response signals from the hardware.
Example:
o This bus is used to indicate whether the CPU is reading from memory or
writing to memory.