COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND ORGANISATION

By
Muhammad Baseer
WHY STUDY COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE?
In Computer science and engineering, computer architecture is the practical art of selecting and
interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet consumers needs.

To be a professional in any field of computing today, we should not consider the computer just as a
black box that executes programs by magic. All students of computing should require some
understanding and knowledge of a computer systems functional components, their characteristics,
their performance, and their interactions and interconnection.

Students need to understand computer architecture in order to structure a program so that it runs
more efficiently on a real machine.
COMPUTER ORGANIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE
Computer Organization refers to the components from which computers are built.

The main hardware components are CPU, Memory, I/O units etc.

Computer Architecture is the science of integrating those components to achieve functionality

and performance.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
Structure: The way in which the components are interrelated

Function: The operation of each individual component as part of the structure

FUNCTION
All computer functions are:

Data processing
Data storage
Data movement
Control
FUNCTIONAL VIEW OF COMPUTER
OPERATIONS (A) DATA MOVEMENT
OPERATIONS (B) STORAGE
OPERATION (C) PROCESSING FROM/TO STORAGE
OPERATION (D)PROCESSING FROM STORAGE TO I/O
STRUCTURE - TOP LEVEL

Peripherals Computer

Central Main
Processing Memory
Unit

Computer
Systems
Interconnection

Input
Output
Communication
lines
STRUCTURE - THE CPU

CPU

Computer Arithmetic
Registers and
I/O Logic Unit
System CPU
Bus
Internal CPU
Memory Interconnection

Control
Unit
STRUCTURE - THE CONTROL UNIT

Control Unit

CPU
Sequencing
ALU Logic
Control
Internal
Unit
Bus
Control Unit
Registers Registers and
Decoders

Control
Memory
OUTLINE OF THE BOOK (1)
The greater concern in this book is the internal structure of the computer itself, which is shown in
Figure. There are four main structural components:
Central processing unit (CPU): Controls the operation of the computer and performs its data
processing functions.
Main memory: Stores data.
I/O: Moves data between the computer and its external environment.
System interconnection: Some mechanism that provides for communication among CPU, main
memory, and I/O. interconnection is by means of a system bus, consisting of a number of wires
to which all the other components attach.
CONT
Each of these components will be examined in some detail in next lectures. However, for our
purposes, the most interesting and in some ways the most complex component is the CPU. Its
major structural components are as follows:
Control unit: Controls the operation of the CPU
Arithmetic and logic unit (ALU): Performs the computers data processing functions
Registers: Provides storage internal to the CPU.
CPU interconnection: Some mechanism that provides for communication among the control
unit, ALU, and registers