Inside the Silicon Brain
This component has the responsibility for the execution or processing of all the instructions and data in a computer application.
What is the Central Processing Unit (or CPU)?
This register stores the address where the next instruction to be read can be found.
What is the Program Counter (or PC)?
This component defines the cycle that synchronises all computer operations.
What is the system clock?
These components are used in computers as parallel transmission components, where each wire transmits one bit of data.
What are system buses?
This is a combination of hardware and software which is designed to carry out a specific set of functions.
What is an embedded system?
This part of the CPU allows the required arithmetic, such as addition, or logic operations, such as AND and OR, to be carried out.
What is the Arithmetic & Logic Unit (or ALU)?
This register stores data temporarily during ALU calculations.
What is the Accumulator (or ACC)?
This process is the sequence of steps used by the CPU to process each instruction in sequence, consisting of three main stages.
What is the Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle?
This specific bus is unidirectional, meaning bits can travel in one direction only, which prevents undesirable features like carrying addresses back to the CPU.
What is the Address bus?
Because embedded systems are dedicated to a specific set of tasks, engineers can optimise their designs to reduce these two attributes of the devices.
What are physical size and cost?
This component ensures the synchronisation of data flow and program instructions throughout the computer.
What is the Control Unit (or CU)?
This register stores the current instruction that is being decoded and executed.
What is the Current Instruction Register (or CIR)?
Located within the CPU itself, this memory stores frequently used instructions and has much faster data access times than RAM.
What is Cache memory?
This bidirectional bus carries signals from the control unit to all the other computer components and is usually 8-bits wide.
What is the Control bus?
This type of embedded setup has a CPU in addition to some RAM and ROM and other peripherals all embedded onto one single chip.
What is a microcontroller?
Developed in the mid-1940s, this architecture introduced the concept of the stored program computer where memories could store programs as well as data.
What is the von Neumann architecture?
This register stores the current instruction that is being decoded and executed.
What is the Current Instruction Register (or CIR)?
A computer's CPU can be made up of two or four of these components, which each contain an ALU, a control unit, and registers.
What are cores?
This bidirectional bus can carry an address, an instruction, or a numerical value to and from the CPU, memory, and input/output devices.
What is the Data bus?
Depending on the device, embedded systems can either be programmable or this alternative, which generally requires replacement if a software upgrade is needed.
What is non-programmable?
An operation in a computer system is made up of these two parts: one informs the CPU what operation needs to be done, and the other is the data to be acted on.
What are the opcode and operand?
This register stores data which has just been read from memory or data which is about to be written to memory.
What is the Memory Data Register (or MDR)?
This practice involves changing the clock speed in the BIOS to a higher speed than the computer was designed for, which can lead to overheating and crashing.
What is overclocking?
Increasing this specific characteristic of a bus allows larger word lengths to be transported, which can improve the computer's overall performance.
What is the bus width?
This type of embedded system may contain a microcontroller and almost always includes a CPU, memory, input/output ports, and secondary storage on a single microchip.
What is a system on a chip (or SoC)?