Introduction I/O systems generally place greater emphasis on dependability & cost.
I/O systems must also plan for expandability and
diversity of devices.
Performance plays a small role for I/O systems.
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Diversity of I/O systems Three characteristics are useful in organizing the wide variety of I/O systems. Behavior : Input (read once), Output (write only) or storage Partner : Either Human or a machine at the end of the I/O device. Data rate : The peak rate at which the data can be transferred between the i/o devices and main memeory or processor. Ex : A key board, i/p device used by a human with data rate about 10 bytes per second. 11/5/2008 Computer Architecture & Design 3 A typical collection of I/O devices
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Typical I/O devices
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Interfacing I/O devices to processor memory and operating systems Giving Commands to i/o devices Basically two techniques are used to address the devices. 1.Memory-mapped I/O : An i/o scheme in which portions of address space are assigned to i/o devices. Ex : Simple printer has 2 i/o device registers. a. Status register : It contains done bit and error bit. b. Data register : The data to be printed is put into this register.
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2. Alternative method is to use dedicated i/o instructions in the processor.
These specify both the device no. and command word.
The processor communicates via a set of wires
normally included as a part of i/o bus.
Commands can be transmitted over data lines in the
bus. Ex : Intel IA32, IBM 370.
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Communicating with the processor.
Polling : The process of periodically checking the status of
the i/o devices to determine the need to service the devices. Disadvantage : Waste of processor time. Interrupt Driven i/o Systems : It employs i/o interrupts to indicate the processor that an i/o device needs attention. A system can use either vector interrupts or an exception cause register.
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The status register determines who can interrupt the computer. A more refined blocking of interrupts is available in the interrupt mask field. There is a bit in the mask corresponding each bit in the pending interrupt field of cause register.
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Transferring the data between a device and memory Polling and i/o interrupts are the basic methods for implementing data transfer.
Direct Memory Access : A mechanism that provides a
driver controller the ability to transfer the data directly to or from memory with out involving the processor.
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Conclusion I/O systems are evaluated on several different characteristics : Dependability ,variety of i/o devices supported , cost .
These goals lead to widely varying schemes for
interfacing i/o devices.
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References Computer Organization & Design – David Patterson John L. Hennessy.
A Standard Microcomputer Consists of A Microprocessor (CPU), Buses, Memory, Parallel Input/output, Serial Input/output, Programmable I/O Interrupt, and Direct Memory Access DMA