ENGR 120: Engineering Computation

Computer components

The System Unit

What is the system unit?

Case that contains electronic components of the computer used to process data
Sometimes called the chassis

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The System Unit

What are common components inside the system unit?
power supply drive bays

Processor Memory Adapter cards

Sound card Video card
ports

processor

memory

Ports Drive bays Power supply

video card sound card

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The System Unit

What is the motherboard?

Main circuit board in system unit Contains adapter cards, processor chips, and memory chips Also called system board

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The System Unit

What is a chip?

Small piece of semi-conducting material on which integrated circuits are etched Integrated circuits contain many microscopic pathways capable of carrying electrical current Chips are packaged so they can be attached to a circuit board

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Processor
What is the central processing unit (CPU)?
Interprets

and carries out basic instructions that operate a computer

Control unit directs and coordinates operations in computer Arithmetic logic unit Input (ALU) performs Devices arithmetic, comparison, and logical operations

Processor
Control Control Unit Unit Arithmetic Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) Logic Unit (ALU) Instructions Data Information

Data

Memory
Instructions Data Information

Information

Output Devices

Also

called the processor

Storage Devices
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Processor
What is a machine cycle?

Four operations of the CPU comprise a machine cycle

Step 1. Fetch
Obtain program instruction or data item from memory

Memory

Step 4. Store
Write result to memory
Processor

Step 2. Decode
Translate instruction into commands

ALU

Step 3. Execute
Carry out command

Control Unit

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Processor
What is a register?

Temporary high-speed storage area that holds data and instructions

Stores location from where instruction was fetched Stores instruction while it is being decoded Stores results of calculation Stores data while ALU computes it

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Processor
What is the system clock?

Controls timing of all computer operations Generates regular electronic pulses, or ticks, that set operating pace of components of system unit
Pace of system clock is clock speed Most clock speeds are in the gigahertz (GHz) range (1 GHz = one billion ticks of system clock per second)

Each tick is a clock cycle

Processor speed can also be measured in millions of instructions per second (MIPS)

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Processor
Which processor should you select?
The faster the processor, the more expensive the computer
Intel Processor
Itanium or Xeon

Desired Clock Speed

1.3 GHz and up

Pentium family

3.0 GHz and up 2.4 GHz to 3.0 GHz Up to 2.4 GHz

Celeron

2.2 GHz and up

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Processor
What are heat sinks, heat pipes, and liquid cooling?

Heat sinkcomponent with fins that cools processor Heat pipe smaller device for notebook computers Liquid coolinguses a continuous flow of fluids to transfer heat away
e

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Data Representation
How do computers represent data?

Most computers are digital

Recognize only two discrete states: on or off Use a binary system to recognize two states Use Number system with two unique digits: 0 and 1, called bits (short for binary digits)

Data Representation
What is a byte?

Eight bits grouped together as a unit Provides enough different combinations of 0s and 1s to represent 256 individual characters
Numbers Uppercase and lowercase letters Punctuation marks Other

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Representing Characters
What are three popular coding systems to represent data?

ASCIIAmerican Standard Code for Information Interchange EBCDICExtended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code Unicodecoding scheme capable of representing all worlds languages
ASCII 00110000 00110001 00110010 00110011 Symbol 0 1 2 3 EBCDIC 11110000 11110001 11110010 11110011

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ASCII Codes

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) codes are used to represent characters in a computer system. Each character we wish to use must be assigned a unique binary code or number to distinguish it from all other characters. The characters to be represented include: upper-case (A-Z), lower-case(a-z), numerals(0-9), punctuation(, . ; : etc.) and control characters (nonprinting, e.g. Esc) Since about 100 different characters need to be represented, 7 bits can be used for each character, the left-most bit normally set to zero.

Unicode

In addition to ASCII, there is a 16-bit standard code referred to as Unicode for representing characters. The problem with ASCII codes is that a maximum of 256 characters can be represented. While this is fine for handling text in the English language, it is useless for handling other languages such as Chinese or Japanese where there are literally thousands of individual characters making up the language alphabet. Unicode allows more than 65,000 characters to be represented and so is sufficient for the alphabet of almost any language. The first 128 Unicode codes correspond to the standard ASCII codes.

Data Representation
How is a letter converted to binary form and back?
Step 1.
The user presses the capital letter D (shift+D key) on the keyboard.

Step 2.
An electronic signal for the capital letter D is sent to the system unit.

Step 4.
After processing, the binary code for the capital letter D is converted to an image, and displayed on the output device.

Step 3.
The signal for the capital letter D is converted to its ASCII binary code (01000100) and is stored in memory for processing.

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Memory
What is memory?

Electronic components that store instructions, data, and results Consists of one or Address more chips on motherboard or other circuit board Each byte stored in unique location called an address,

Data in byte

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Memory
How is memory measured?

By number of bytes available for storage

Term Kilobyte Megabyte Gigabyte Terabyte Abbreviation KB or K MB GB TB Approximate Size 1 thousand bytes 1 million bytes 1 billion bytes 1 trillion bytes

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Memory
What is random access memory (RAM)?
Memory chips that can be read from and written to by processor
Also called main memory or primary storage Most RAM is volatile, it is lost when computers power is turned off

The more RAM a computer has, the faster it responds

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Memory
How much RAM does an application require?

Depends on the types of software you plan to use For optimal performance, you need more than minimum specifications

How much RAM do you need? Depends on type of applications you intend to run on your computer

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Memory
What is cache? Helps speed computer processes by storing frequently used instructions and data Also called memory cache What is flash memory? Nonvolatile memory that can be erased electronically and rewritten Used with PDAs, digital cameras, smart phones, music players, digital voice recorders, printers, Internet receivers, and pagers
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Memory
What is read-only memory (ROM)?
Memory chips that store permanent data and instructions Three types:
EEPROM Firmware (electrically Manufactured with erasable programmable permanently written read-only memory) data, instructions, Type of PROM or information PROM containing microcode (programmable programmer read-only can erase memory) Blank ROM chip onto which a programmer can write permanently
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Nonvolatile memory, it is not lost when computers power is turned off

Memory
What is CMOS?
Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor memory Used in some RAM chips, flash memory chips, and other types of memory chips

Uses battery power to retain information when other power is turned off

Stores date, time, and computers startup information

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Memory
What is access time?

Amount of time it takes processor to read data from memory Measured in nanoseconds (ns), one billionth of a second It takes 1/10 of a second to blink your eye; a computer can perform up to 10 million operations in same amount of time
Term Millisecond Microsecond Nanosecond Picosecond Speed One-thousandth of a second One-millionth of a second One-billionth of a second One-trillionth of a second
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