COMPUTER PLATFORMS

WEEK 2 Lecture A

MICROPROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE

1971, two companies introduce new technology that will change the world forever the microprocessor had arrived. Two rival companies, Intel and Texas Instruments, produced it.

Every country in the world use microprocessors in some form or other, be it computers, washing machines, communication devices, cars and climate control systems.

What is it?

How does it work?

Inside a Microprocessor

A microprocessor executes a collection of machine instructions that tell the processor what to do. Based on the instructions, a microprocessor does three basic things:

• Using its ALU (Arithmetic/Logic Unit), a microprocessor can perform mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Modern microprocessors contain complete floating-point processors that can perform extremely sophisticated operations on large floating-point numbers.
• A microprocessor can move data from one memory location to another.
• A microprocessor can make decisions and jump to a new set of instructions based on those decisions.

SIMPLE MICROPROCESSOR

This microprocessor has:

• An address bus (that may be 8, 16 or 32 bits wide) that sends an address to memory
• A data bus (that may be 8, 16 or 32 bits wide) that can send data to memory or receive data from memory
• An RD (read) and WR (write) line to tell the memory whether it wants to set or get the addressed location
• A clock line that lets a clock pulse sequence the processor
• A reset line that resets the program counter to zero (or whatever) and restarts execution

A SYSTEM

What is a system?

A system is composed of three things, input, an output and a process.

Examples

CAR, Petrol goes in to generate energy to move the car and exhaust fumes are the output.

You may also have systems within systems

The battery in the car has electricity generated by the car charging the battery the output of this would be the gases are given off.  

This then is a simple idea of systems and subsystems; you could say that the car is a sub system of the traffic system etc.

The microprocessor itself has inputs and outputs these consist of a series of voltages, the process involves analysing the input voltages and deciding on the output voltages required.

 So where are the rest of the notes??

Well check the microprocessor links I gave you all you need is there!!