Computer

Organization
2016 - 2015
Instructors
• Course By:
• Lecturer: Shimaa Ibrahim Hassan
• TA: Eng: Moufeda Hussien
• Lecture: Wednesday @ 9:45
• Email Address: [email protected]
• Alt. Email: [email protected]
Course Objectives
Describe the general organization and architecture of computers.
 Identify computers’ major components and study their functions.
Introduce hardware design issues of modern computer
architectures.
Learn assembly language programming.
 Build the required skills to read and research the current
literature in computer architecture.
Text Books
• “Computer Organization and Design”, 4th Edition, Patterson
& Hennessy, © 2008

• “Computer Organization,” by Carl Hamacher, Zvonko

Vranesic and Safwat Zaky. Fifth Edition McGraw-Hill, 2002.

• “SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming and

C,” Richard P. Paul, Prentice Hall, 2000.
Grading System
• Final exam .................................... 75 degrees
• Mid-term .................................... 20 degrees
• Sec. Work ................................... 20 degrees
• Quizies .......................................... 10 degrees
Important Prerequisite
Material
• Digital Logic Course is fundamental to the Computer
Organization Course.

• Review issues in:

- Basic computer organization: CPU, Memory, I/O,
Registers.
- Simple ALU, simple register design.
Under the Covers
• Five classic components of
a computer: input, output,
memory, datapath, and
control
• datapath + control =
processor (CPU) (it
manipulates instructions
and data)
?What is a Computer
• a computer is a sophisticated electronic calculating
machine that:
• Accepting information to be processed as input.
• Storing a list of instructions to process the information.
• Processing the information according to the list of
instructions.
• Providing the results of the processing as output.
Functional Units of a
Computer
Input unit accepts Arithmetic and logic unit(ALU):
information: •Performs the desired
•Human operators, operations on the input
•Electromechanical devices (keyboard) information as determined
•Other computers by instructions in the memory

Memory
Arithmetic
Input
Instr1 & Logic
Instr2
Instr3
Data1
Output Data2 Control

I/O Processor
Stores Control unit coordinates
Output unit sends information: various actions
results of processing: •Instructions, •Input,
•To a monitor display, •Data •Output
•To a printer •Processing

9
Input Unit
• Tasks are performed by the input unit:
- Interfaces with input devices.
- Accepts binary information from the input devices.
- Presents this binary information in a format expected by the
computer.
- Transfers this information to the memory or processor.
Memory Unit
• Memory unit stores instructions and data as a series of bits.

• Processor reads instructions and reads/writes data from/to the memory

during the execution of a program.
• In theory, instructions and data could be fetched one bit at a time.
• In practice, a group of bits is fetched at a time.
• Group of bits stored or retrieved at a time is termed as “word”
• Number of bits in a word is termed as the “word length” of a
computer.
Memory Unit (cont.)

• Processor reads/writes to and from memory based on the memory address:

• Access any word location in a short and fixed amount of time based on
the address.
• Random Access Memory (RAM) provides fixed access time independent
of the location of the word.
• Access time is known as “Memory Access Time”.
• Memory and processor have to “communicate” with each other in order to
read/write information.
• In order to reduce “communication time”, a small amount of RAM
(known as Cache) is tightly coupled with the processor.
Memory Unit: Primary Storage
• Primary storage of the computer consists of RAM units.
• Fastest, smallest unit is Cache.
• Slowest, largest unit is Main Memory.
• Primary storage is insufficient to store large amounts of data and
programs.
• Primary storage can be added, but it is expensive.
Memory Unit: Secondary Storage
• Store large amounts of data on secondary storage devices:
• Magnetic disks and tapes,
• Optical disks (CD-ROMS).
• Access to the data stored in secondary storage in slower, but take
advantage of the fact that some information may be accessed
infrequently.
• Cost of a memory unit depends on its access time, lesser access time
implies higher cost.
Instructions
• Instructions specify commands to:
• Transfer information within a computer (e.g., from memory to
ALU)
• Transfer of information between the computer and I/O
devices (e.g., from keyboard to computer, or computer to
printer)
• Perform arithmetic and logic operations (e.g., Add two
numbers, Perform a logical AND).
Instructions (cont.)

• A sequence of instructions to perform a task is called a

program, which is stored in the memory.
• Processor fetches instructions that make up a program
from the memory and performs the operations stated in
those instructions.
• Instruction Example:
add a,b,c
Data
• Data are the “operands” upon which instructions operate.
• Data could be:
• Numbers,
• Encoded characters.
• Data, in a broad sense means any digital information.
• Computers use data that is encoded as a string of binary
digits called bits.
Arithmetic and Logic Unit
(ALU)
• Operations are executed in the Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU).
• Arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction.
• Logic operations such as comparison of numbers.
• In order to execute an instruction, operands need to be brought into the
ALU from the memory.
• Operands are stored in general purpose registers available in the ALU.
• Access times of general purpose registers are faster than the cache.
• Results of the operations are stored back in the memory or retained in
the processor for immediate use.
Registers
• Register is a very fast computer memory used to speed the
execution of computer programs
• Registers are the top of the memory hierarchy, and are the
fastest way for the system to manipulate data.
• They are normally measured by the number of bits they
can hold, for example, an “8-bit register” or a “32-bit
register”, actually according to the memory word size
Registers (cont.)

• There are several other classes of registers:

(a) General Purpose Registers: General purpose registers are used
to store data and intermediate results during program
execution. Its contents can be accessed through assembly
programming (R1, R2, R3,…….)
(b) Special Purpose Registers: Users do not access these registers.
These are used by computer system at the time of program
execution.
Special Purpose Registers
• Some types of special purpose registers are given below:
Memory Address Register (MAR): It stores address of data or
instructions to be fetched from memory
Instruction Register (IR): stores the instruction currently being
executed . When one instruction is completed, next instruction is
fetched in memory for processing.
Program Counter (PC): holds the address of the instruction that
should be executed next
Output Unit
• Computers represent information in a specific binary form.
Output units:
- Interfaces with output devices.
- Accepts processed results provided by the computer in
specific binary form.
- Converts the information in binary form to a form
understood by an
output device.
Control unit
• Operation of a computer can be summarized as:
• Accepts information from the input units (Input unit).
• Stores the information (Memory).
• Processes the information (ALU).
• Provides processed results through the output units (Output
unit).
Control unit (cont.)

• Operations of Input unit, Memory, ALU and Output unit are

coordinated by Control unit.
• Instructions control “what” operations take place (e.g. data
transfer, processing).
• Control unit generates timing signals which determines “when” a
particular operation takes place.
Input Output Memory Processor

Buses Bus

• For a computer to achieve its operation, the functional units

need to communicate with each other.
• Functional units may be connected by a group of parallel
wires.
• The group of parallel wires is called a bus.
• Each wire in a bus can transfer one bit of information.
• The number of parallel wires in a bus is equal to the word
length of a computer
Below the Program

Applications software
Systems software

Hardware
Below the Program (cont.)

• System software
• Operating system – supervising program that interfaces the
user’s program with the hardware (e.g., Linux, MacOS, Windows)
• Handles basic input and output operations
• Allocates storage and memory
• Provides for protected sharing among multiple applications
• Compiler – translate programs written in a high-level language
(e.g., C, Java) into instructions that the hardware can execute
From a High-Level Language to
the Hardware Language
• A high-level programming language is composed of words
and algebraic notation that can be translated by a compiler
into assembly language
• Assembly language symbolically represents machine
instructions
• An assembler translates a symbolic version of a machine
instruction into its binary version
From a High-Level Language to
the Hardware Language (cont.)
• Machine language is the binary representation of machine
instructions
• Instructions and data are just collection of binary digits
(bits)
• Instructions are individual commands that computers
understand and obey
• Hardware executes machine instructions (extremely simple
low-level instructions)
From a High-Level Language to
the Hardware Language (cont.)
• High-level language program (in C)
swap (int v[], int k)
( int temp;
temp = v[k]; C compiler
v[k] = v[k+1];
v[k+1] = temp;
)
• Assembly language program (for MIPS)
swap: sll $2, $5, 2
add $2, $4, $2
.
. assembler
jr $31
• Machine (object, binary) code (for MIPS)
000000 00000 00101 0001000010000000
000000 00100 00010 0001000000100000
. . .
Content Coverage