Computer Systems

Lecture – 1

Dr. Zu Zu Aung

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Types and Components of Computer Systems
• Hardware
• Software
• Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• Internal Memory (RAM and ROM)
• Input and Output devices
• Backing Store
• Operating Systems
• Types of computer – desktop computers and mobile computers (laptop, smartphone, tablet
and phablet)

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Hardware
• Hardware is the general term for the physical components that make up
a typical computer system. For example:
» keyboard
Input devices
» mouse input device
» camera
» monitor Output devices
» printer output device
» plotter
• Hardware falls into two categories: internal and external.

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 Internal Hardware Devices:

» motherboard
» central processing unit (CPU)/processor
» random access memory (RAM)
» read-only memory (ROM)
» graphics card
» sound card
» network interface card (NIC)
» internal storage devices (hard disk drive and solid-state drive).

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Internal Hardware Devices:

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 Hard Drive/Disk

Tower computer

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 Power Supply

DVD or Optical drive

Tower case
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 Memory modules

Computer motherboard 8
Adapter

Mother Board with Expansion Slot and Adapter

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 Motherboard

• The motherboard is a printed circuit board found in all computers. It allows

the processor and other computer hardware to function and communicate
with each other.
• One of the major functions of a typical motherboard is to act as a kind of
'hub' which other computer devices connect to.
• A typical motherboard consists of a sheet of non-conductive material, such
as hard plastic. Thin layers of copper or aluminium are printed onto this
sheet. These form the circuits between the various components.
• In addition to circuits, a motherboard contains several sockets and slots to
connect the other components.
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Random access memory (RAM)

• Random access memory (RAM) is an internal chip where data is

temporarily stored when running applications.
• This memory can be written to and read from.
• Since its contents are lost when power to the computer is turned off, it
is often referred to as a volatile or temporary memory.
• RAM stores the data, files or part of the operating system currently in
use.

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Read-only memory (ROM)

• Read-only memory (ROM) is a memory used to store information that

needs to be permanent.
• It is often used to contain, for example, configuration data for a
computer system. These chips cannot be altered and can only be read
from (hence their name).
• One of the main advantages is that the information stored on the ROM
chip is not lost even when power is turned off to the computer.
• They are often referred to as non-volatile memories.

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Central processing unit (CPU)/processor
• The central processing unit (CPU) (also known as a microprocessor or
processor) is central to all modern computer systems (including tablets and
smartphones).
• The CPU is very often installed as an integrated circuit on a single
microchip.
• The CPU has the responsibility for the execution or processing of all the
instructions and data in a computer application, the CPU consists of:
» control unit (CU)
» arithmetic and logic unit (ALU)
» registers and buses.

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Network interface card (NIC)
• A network interface card (NIC) is a component that allows a computer
or any other device (for example, a printer) to be connected to a
network (for example, the internet); it can be wired or wireless.
• Each NIC is hard-coded with a unique MAC (media access control)
address

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 Graphics card
• A graphics card allows the computer to send graphical information to a video
display device such as a monitor, television, or projector.
• It usually connects to the motherboard.
• Graphics cards are usually made up of:
• a processing unit,
• memory unit (usually RAM),
• a cooling mechanism (often in the form of a heat sink since these cards
generate a lot of heat)
• connections to a display unit (monitor, TV or projector).

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Sound card
• A sound card is an integrated circuit board that provides a computer
with the ability to produce sounds.
• These sounds can be heard by the user either through speakers or
headphones.
• Sound cards also allow a user to record sound input from a microphone
connected to the computer, and manipulate sound stored on a disk.

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Internal hard disk drive/solid-state drive (HDD/SSD)
• Basically, hard disk drives (HDDs) are magnetic in nature and are one of
the main methods for storing data, files (text, photos and music) and most
of the system and applications software.
• More modern computers (and all tablets) use the newer storage systems
which make use of solid-state (SSD) technology and are replacing HDDs
in many cases.
• Their function is the same as an HDD.

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Central Processing Unit (CPU)

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Central processing unit (CPU)/processor
• The central processing unit (CPU) (also known as a microprocessor or
processor) is central to all modern computer systems (including tablets and
smartphones).
• The CPU is very often installed as an integrated circuit on a single
microchip.
• The CPU has the responsibility for the execution or processing of all the
instructions and data in a computer application, the CPU consists of:
» control unit (CU)
» arithmetic and logic unit (ALU)
» registers and buses.

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Arithmetic & Logic Unit (ALU)

• The Arithmetic & Logic Unit (ALU) allows the required arithmetic (e.g. +,
- and shifting) or logic (e.g. AND, OR) operations to be carried out while a
program is being run;
• It is possible for a computer to have more than one ALU to carry out specific
functions.
• Multiplication and division are carried out by a sequence of addition,
subtraction and left or right logical shift operations.

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Control Unit (CU)
• The control unit reads an instruction from memory. The address of the
location where the instruction can be found is stored in the Program Counter
(PC).
• This instruction is then interpreted using the Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle.
• During that process, signals are generated along the control bus to tell the
other components in the computer what to do.
• The control unit ensures synchronization of data flow and program
instructions throughout the computer.

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Von Neumann architecture

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System Clock
• A system clock is used to produce timing signals on the control bus to ensure
this vital synchronization takes place – without the clock the computer would
simply crash!.
• The RAM holds all the data and programs needed to be accessed by the CPU.
• The RAM is often referred to as the Immediate Access Store (IAS). The
CPU takes data and programs held in backing store (e.g. a hard disk drive)
and puts them into RAM temporarily.
• This is done because read/write operations carried out using the RAM are
considerably faster than read/write operations to backing store; consequently,
any key data needed by an application will be stored temporarily in RAM to
considerably speed up operations.

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 Registers

• One of the most fundamental components of the von Neumann system are the
registers.
• Registers can be general or special purpose.

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System buses and memory
• Buses are used to connect the CPU to the memory and to input/ output
devices.

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Memory
• The computer memory is made up of a number of partitions.
• Each partition consists of an address and its contents. Uses 8 bits for each address
and 8 bits for the content.
• The address will uniquely identify every location in the memory and the contents
will be the binary value stored in each location.

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MAR and MDR Registers

• The MAR and MDR registers can be used when carrying out a read and write
operation to and from memory:
• First, consider the READ operation; to read the contents of memory location
1111 0001;
• The two registers are used as follows:
» the address of location 1111 0001 to be read from is first written into the
MAR (memory address register):

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MAR and MDR Registers
• A ‘read signal’ is sent to the computer memory.
» the contents of memory location 1111 0001 are then put into the MDR
(memory data register):

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MAR and MDR Registers
Consider the WRITE operation.
» the data to be stored is first written into the MDR (memory data register):

» this data has to be written into location with address: 1111 1101; so this
address is now written into the MAR:

» finally, a ‘write signal’ is sent to the computer memory and the value
10010101 will then be written into the correct memory location.
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 System buses

• (System) buses are used in computers as parallel transmission components;

each wire in the bus transmits one bit of data.
• There are three common buses used in the von Neumann architecture known
as:
address bus,
data bus and
control bus.

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Address bus
• The address bus carries addresses throughout the computer system.
• Between the CPU and memory, the address bus is unidirectional (i.e. bits
can travel in one direction only); this prevents addresses being carried back
to the CPU, which would be an undesirable feature.
• The width of a bus is very important. The wider the bus, the more memory
locations that can be directly addressed at any given time,
• e.g. a bus of width 16 bits can address 216 (65 536) memory locations
whereas a bus width of 32 bits allows 4 294 967 296 memory locations to be
simultaneously addressed.
• However, even this isn’t large enough for modern computers.

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 Data bus
• The data bus is bidirectional (allowing data to be sent in both directions
along the bus).
• This means data can be carried from CPU to memory (and vice versa) and to
and from input/output devices.
• It is important to point out that data can be an address, an instruction or a
numerical value.
• The width of the data bus is important; the wider the bus the larger the word
length that can be transported. (A word is a group of bits which can be
regarded as a single unit e.g. 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit word lengths are the
most common.)
• Larger word lengths can improve the computer’s overall performance.
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Control bus
• The control bus is also bidirectional. It carries signals from the control unit
(CU) to all the other computer components.
• It is usually 8-bits wide. There is no real need for it to be any wider since it
only carries control signals.

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 Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle

• To carry out a set of instructions, the CPU first of all fetches some data and
instructions from memory and stores them in suitable registers.
• Both the address bus and data bus are used in this process. Once this is done,
each instruction needs to be decoded before finally being executed.
• This is all known as the Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle.

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Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle flowchart

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Cores, cache and internal clock

• To determine the performance of a CPU, the first thing to consider is the role
of the system clock.
• The clock defines the clock cycle that synchronizes all computer operations.
• The control bus transmits timing signals ensuring everything is fully
synchronised. By increasing clock speed, the processing speed of the
computer is also increased (a typical current value is 3.5 GHz – which means
3.5 billion clock cycles a second).
• Although the speed of the computer may have been increased, it isn’t
possible to say that a computer’s overall performance is necessarily increased
by using a higher clock speed.

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Cache Memory

• The use of cache memories can also improve CPU performance. Unlike
RAM, cache memory is located within the CPU itself, which means it has
much faster data access times than RAM.
• Cache memory stores frequently used instructions and data that need to be
accessed faster, which improves CPU performance.
• When a CPU wishes to read memory, it will first check out the cache and
then move on to main memory/RAM if the required data isn’t there.
• The larger the cache memory size the better the CPU performance.

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Cores
• The use of a different number of cores can improve computer performance.
• One core is made up of an ALU, a control unit and the registers.
• Many computers are dual core (the CPU is made up of two cores) or quad
core (the CPU is made up of four cores).
• The idea of using more cores alleviates the need to continually increase clock
speeds.
• However, doubling the number of cores doesn’t necessarily double the
computer’s performance.

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Cores
• A dual core the CPU communicates with both cores using one channel
reducing some of the potential increase in its performance:

• A quad core the CPU communicates with all four cores using six channels,
considerably reducing potential performance:

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All Factors need to consider Computer Performance
• All these factors need to be taken into account when considering computer
performance. Summarising these points:
» increasing bus width (data and address buses) increases the performance and
speed of a computer system
» increasing clock speed will potentially increase the speed of a computer.
» a computer’s performance can be changed by altering bus width, clock speed
and use of multi-core CPUs
» use of cache memories can also speed up a CPU’s performance.

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Thank You

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