Summary of "COA 01 | Basics of COA And CPU Registers | CS & IT | GATE 2025 Crash Course"
Summary of "COA 01 | Basics of COA And CPU Registers | CS & IT | GATE 2025 Crash Course"
Main Ideas and Concepts Covered:
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Course Introduction and Approach
- Instructor Vishwadeep welcomes students to a crash course on Computer Organization and Architecture (COA) aimed at GATE 2025 preparation.
- The course is designed as a concise, targeted revision or first-time study guide, focusing on important topics that frequently appear in exams.
- The course schedule includes daily 2-hour classes over 8-10 days, covering the entire syllabus in about 20 hours.
- Emphasis on understanding concepts deeply rather than just rote learning.
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Difference Between Computer Architecture and Organization
- Architecture: Conceptual design and blueprint of the computer system; defines the functional behavior, data paths, instruction sets, addressing modes, and data formats.
- Organization: Physical implementation of the architecture; details how components like CPU, memory, and I/O devices are connected and interact.
- Organization focuses on improving performance through techniques like cache memory, interrupts, DMA (Direct Memory Access), and device interaction.
- Architecture is theoretical design; organization is practical implementation.
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Basic Components of a Computer System
- Three primary components:
- CPU (Central Processing Unit): Performs processing and control functions.
- Memory (Primary/Main Memory): Stores currently running programs and data.
- I/O Devices: For input and output operations (keyboard, mouse, printer, storage devices, etc.).
- CPU consists of:
- Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): Performs arithmetic and logical operations.
- Control Unit (CU): Generates control signals and orchestrates operations.
- Memory stores programs and data temporarily for CPU execution.
- I/O devices interact with CPU and memory via buses and control signals.
- Three primary components:
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System Buses
- Buses are collections of communication lines/wires connecting CPU, memory, and I/O devices.
- Types of buses:
- Address Bus: Unidirectional; carries memory addresses from CPU to memory or I/O.
- Data Bus: Bidirectional; carries data between CPU, memory, and I/O.
- Control Bus: Carries control signals for read/write operations, interrupts, and synchronization.
- Bus width (number of lines) determines how many bits can be transferred simultaneously.
- Example: A 16-bit bus can transfer 16 bits in parallel.
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CPU Registers
- Small, fast memory locations inside the CPU used to hold instructions, data, addresses, and status information temporarily during execution.
- Two main categories:
- General Purpose Registers: No fixed function; used to store any data needed during execution (e.g., R0, R1, R2...).
- Special Purpose Registers: Have fixed functions, including:
- Accumulator (AC): Stores intermediate arithmetic and logic results.
- Program Counter (PC): Holds the address of the next instruction to execute.
- Instruction Register (IR): Holds the currently executing instruction.
- Stack Pointer (SP): Points to the top of the stack in memory.
- Flag/Status Register (PSW): Stores status flags like zero, carry, sign, overflow to aid conditional operations.
- Memory Address Register (MAR) / Address Register (AR): Holds memory addresses for accessing memory.
- Memory Data Register (MDR) / Data Register (DR): Holds data being transferred to/from memory.
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CPU Instruction Execution Cycle
- CPU fetches instructions one by one from memory using the PC.
- Instruction is stored in IR for decoding and execution.
- Operands/data required for instruction execution are fetched from memory or registers.
- Results are stored back in registers or memory.
- PC increments to point to the next instruction unless altered by control instructions.
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Memory Organization
- Memory divided into small units called cells; each cell has a unique address.
- Memory addressing can be:
- Byte Addressable: Each address points to one byte.
- Word Addressable: Each address points to a word (multiple bytes).
- The size of a word depends on system design (e.g., 4 bytes for 32-bit systems).
- Address size (number of bits) depends on total memory size (e.g., 2^x cells require x-bit addresses).
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CPU Architecture Types Based on Operand Handling
- Single Operand Architecture: One operand is always the accumulator.
- Register Based Architecture: Both operands must be in registers.
- Register-Memory Architecture: One operand in register, one can be in memory.
- Memory Architecture: Both operands can be in memory (more complex to design).
Category
Educational