Lecture 1

Institute of Accountancy Arusha (IAA)

 Learning Objectives
Introduction to computer
architecture and organization
concepts
Computer system components
Concept of levels in computer
architecture
Computer structure
Designing for Performance
 What is computer?
A Computer is a electronic device which
fetches data, process, store and distribute to
different parts.
An overview of the basic constituents of a
computer, a PC (Personnel Computer)
configuration, is given in Figure 1.
The computer is fed with information (the
input data).
The computer manipulates this data and
then produces information as a result (the
output data).
In Figure 1 the solid arrows indicate the flow
 Cont….

Figure1: Constituent parts of a computer

structural
Computer system has the following major
components
 Processor
 memory,
 Input / Output (I/O) system
The computer processor has the following major
components:
 Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
 control unit,
 Registers and
 instruction execution unit
The control unit has the following major
components:
 control memory,
 microinstruction sequencing logic, and
 Cont.………….
Input are entered by the user (typically via
the keyboard or a mouse), or may be taken
from an external data store, or other
external devices (e.g. external drives,
remote sensors, cameras etc).
Output may be to the computer monitor; or
to secondary storage or to other external
devices (e.g. external drives, printers,
plotters, etc).
The computer's behavior is controlled by a
program. By changing the program or
replacing it with another program we can
influence the behavior of the computer.
 Cont.….
The central part of a computer is its CPU
(Central Processing Unit) which in turn
comprises a Control Unit (CU) and an
Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU):
 It is the "administrative" section of the
computer. It controls and coordinates all the
computers activities including the "execution"
(i.e. running) of programs. It controls the
reading of input into memory, tells the ALU
when information from memory should be
used in calculations and sends information
from memory to output devises.
 The ALU contains electronic circuits that can
carry out various operations on data, e.g.
 Common Types of Computer
memory
The computer has two types of memory
associated with it:
Primary memory is used to store the
program that a computer is currently running.
The primary memory also provides the
additional temporary storage required during
the execution of a program.
Secondary storage is used to store
programs when they are not being executed
(and the data that might be required by
programs or produced as output). Common
types of secondary storage include: hard
dives, CDs, DVDs, "floppy" discs, magnetic
tape, etc.
 Cont.……
There is always at least one program running
in a computer (when it is switched on), this
is the operating system.
This is permanently stored in hard-drive
(hard-disk) and (amongst other things) it
facilitates communication with the user.
Pieces of equipment that supply data (input)
to the computer, e.g. the keyboard, or take
output from the computer, e.g. secondary
storage, are referred to as peripheral units.
 Computer Program
Programs and data contained in
primary memory and secondary
storage are collectively referred to
as software. Generally we can
identify two categories of
software:
System software - programs which
support the use and operation of the
computer itself, e.g. the operating system
and its related programs.
Applications software - programs used
 Cont.……
In computing, an opcode (abbreviated from
operation code) is the portion of a machine
language instruction that specifies the
operation to be performed.
Beside the opcode itself, instructions usually
specify the data they will process, in form of
operands.
Please read more on:
Computer programs
Memories
Computer systems
Computer software applications
 What’s Computer Architecture?
The attributes of a [computing] system as seen
by the programmer, i.e., the conceptual
structure and functional behavior, as distinct
from the organization of the data flows and
controls the logic design, and the physical
implementation.
Amdahl, Blaaw, and Brooks, 1964
SOFTWARE
 Computer Architecture
Definition: It deals with the functional
behavior of a computer system as viewed by
a programmer (like the size of a data type –
32 bits to an integer).
It refers to the attributes of a (computing)
system that have a direct impact on the
logical execution of a program. Examples are:
• The instruction set (instruction set
architecture – ISA)
• The number of bits used to represent
various data types (i.e. real, integer, or
Boolean)
• Input/output mechanism
 Concept of levels in computer
architecture
The basic idea is that there are many levels
at which a computer can be considered, from
the highest level (the application level),
where the user runs programs, to the lowest
level (physical level), consisting of transistors
and wires
Levels of Machines:
There are a number of levels in a computer
(the exact number is open to debate), from
the user level down to the transistor level.
Progressing from the top level downward,
the levels become less abstract as more of
the internal structure of the computer
 Levels of Machine
High Level User Level: Application programs

High Level Languages

Assembly Language / Machine code

Microprogrammed / Hardwired Control

Functional Units (ALU, Memory, etc.)

Logical Gates

Low Level Transistors and Wires

.
 Computer Organization
Definition: Computer organization deals with
structural relationships that are not visible to
the programmer (like clock frequency or the
size of the physical memory)
It refers to the operational units and their
interconnections that realize the architecture
specifications.. Examples are:
• Control Signals
• Interface between computer and its
peripherals
• The memory technology being used.
 Structure and Function
• Millions of electronic components
• To describe computer systems you need to
recognize their hierarchical nature
 Set of layers or levels of interrelated
subsystems
 Each level consists of a set of components and
their inter-relationships
• The behavior of each level depends only
on a simplified, abstracted
characterization of the system at the next
lower level
 Computer Organization
At each level, the designer is
concerned with:
Structure: The way in which the
components are interrelated
 Function: The operation of each
individual component as part of
the structure.
For proper understanding of the
computer we will usually describe
systems from the top-down,
instead of bottom-up.
 Computer Functions cont..
Basic functions that a computer can
perform:
 Data Processing - a wide variety of forms,
but only a few fundamental methods or
types
 Data Storage - long-term or short,
temporary storage
Data Movement
 Input / Output - when data are received
from or delivered to a peripheral, a device
connected directly to the computer
 Data Communications - when data is moved over
longer distances, to or from a remote device
 Computer Functions cont.…
Control - of the above functions, by
instructions provided by the user of
the computer (i.e. their programs)
Four possible types of operations
with this basic structure:
 Device for Processing Data in Storage
 Device for Processing Data En-route
Between the Outside World and
Storage
 Computer Structure
Simplest view of computer:
Storage
Processing
 Peripherals
Communication Lines
 Computer Structure

The computer: Top-Level

 Internal Structure
Internal structure of the computer
itself:
CPU: It’s the “brain” of a computer, where
data manipulation actually takes place.
Referred to as central processor or simply
processor
Main memory: Store data
I/O Moves data between the computer and
its external environment.
System Interconnection: Some
mechanism that provides for
communication among the CPU, main
memory and I/O
 Cont.…………….

The Central Processing Unit

(CPU)
 Structural components of the
CPU
Main Structural components of the
CPU :
Control Unit (CU): It controls the
operation of the CPU and hence the
computer.
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): is a digital
circuit used to perform arithmetic and logic
operations of the computer
Registers: a quickly accessible memory
location that is available to the CPU.
System Interconnection: Some
mechanism that provides for
communication among the CU, ALU and
 Computer history/background
ENIAC
Electronic Numerical Integrator And
Computer (ENIAC) ENIAC, is the first
programmable general-purpose electronic
digital computer, built during World War II
by the United States
Started 1943
Finished 1946
Too late for war effort
Used until 1955
 Computer history/background
ENIAC

ENIAC- Electronic Numerical Integrator And

Computer
 ENIAC details
Decimal (not binary)
20 accumulators of 10 digits
Programmed manually by switches
18,000 vacuum tubes
30 tons
1394 square meters
140 kW power consumption
5,000 additions per second
 Von Neumann Model
Von-Neumann proposed his computer
architecture design in 1945 which was
later known as Von-Neumann
Architecture.
It consisted of a Control Unit, Arithmetic,
and Logical Memory Unit (ALU), Registers
and Inputs/Outputs.
This design is still used in most
computers produced today.
Today we can still see the effect.
Radically different from what went
before.
The memory of the computer was to store both the
data to be worked on and the program doing the
 Von Neumann Architecture

CONTROL

INPUT MEMORY OUTPUT

Data

Control
A.L.U
Address

INPUT > PROCESS >OUTPUT

Structure of von Neumann machine
Von Neumann architecture scheme
The system bus model
 The System Bus Model
A refinement of the von Neumann
model, the system bus model has a
CPU (ALU and control), memory,
and an input/output unit.
Communication among components is
handled by a shared pathway called
the system bus, which is made up of
the data bus, the address bus, and
the control bus.
There is also a power bus, and some
architectures may also have a separate
I/O bus.
 Moore’s Law

Moore’s law states that processor

speeds, or overall processing power
for computers will double every two
years.
In computer project planning one
has to take this observation
seriously.
A computer architecture being
developed today won’t be relevant
in three years time.
 Moore laws

Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) predicted in

1965 that the transistor density of
semiconductor chips would double roughly
every 18 months.

Moore's Law, formulated

by Gordon Moore in
1965, three years before
he helped found chip
maker Intel Corp..
Computer Structure

The microprocessor
speed.
A typical computer system
 Most recent CPU Specifications

Basic specifications of the High End Core i7-

5XXX, single socket Xeon E5 v3, and dual
socket Xeon E5 v3 CPUs (which can be used
as either a single CPU or in a dual CPU
configuration).
In the table below is CPUs from three
different product lines:
 Most recent CPU Features

The main differences of CPU architectures

are not spec-based, but rather features
based: In the figure below is the feature
found in each product line:

The advantage of the Core i7 CPUs over the

others is that they support CPU over-
clocking. The Xeon CPUs can use twelve
times as much memory as the Core i7
CPUs.
Computer motherboard
 Designing for Performance
Evolution of Computer Systems
Price/performance
Price drops every year
Performance increases
almost yearly
Memory size goes up a
factor of 4 in every 3 years
 Designing for Performance cont..
Microprocessor Speed
Density of the IC increases by 4 in
every 3 years
performance boosts of 4-5 times in
every 3 years
More elaborate ways of feeding
instructions quickly enough.
Techniques used;
Branch prediction
Data-flow analysis
Speculative execution
 Designing for Performance cont..
Performance Balance
All components do not increase
performance at same rate as
processor
Adjust the organization and
architecture to compensate for the
mismatch.
 Designing for Performance cont..
Solutions
Make DRAM wider to increase the
number of bits retrieved at once
Change DRAM interface to make it
more efficient
Reduce the frequency of memory
access using increasingly complex
and efficient cache structures
Increase interconnect bandwidth with
higher-speed buses and bus
hierarchies
 Designing for Performance cont..
Today’s computer basic building
blocks are still the ones of the
Princeton IAS!...
But many “tricks” have been
invented to improve performance
Some of the main tricks:
Pipelining
On board cache
On board L1 & L2 cache
Branch prediction
Data flow analysis
 Designing for Performance cont..
The key is balance among:
Processor components
Main memory
I/O devices
Interconnection structures
•Designers must constantly strive to
balance their throughput and
processing demands
 Individual Assignment
1. What has been the trend in
computing from the following
points of view?
a) Cost of hardware
b) Size of memory
c) Speed of hardware
d) Number of processing elements
2. Explain the performance issues of
single core processors and
explain how they can be resolved