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Data Manipulation,
Communication and
Architecture
Fall 2012
IBM PowerPC CPU
Microscope
image
IBM PowerPC CPU
Architecture and CPU
• The essential parts of a computer can be divided
up into several parts:
– The circuitry that performs operations (addition,
subtraction, logic, …) on data is called the central
processing unit, or CPU.
• The CPU is divided up into two parts: the Arithmetic/Logic
unit and the Control unit.
– The primary place where data is stored is located in
another area we know as main memory.
• Main memory is connected to the CPU via a bus, which is used
to transfer bit sequences. The bus is simply a collection of
wires.
CPU con’t
• In between the arithmetic/logic unit and the Control unit
are registers.
– General-purpose registers
– Special-purpose registers
• General-purpose registers serve as temporary holding
places for data (binary sequences) being manipulated by
the CPU. They hold the inputs to the A/L unit and provide
storage for the results of the operations.
• The Control unit coordinates all these activities. For
example:
– It transfers the data from main memory into the general
purpose registers, informs the A/L unit which registers
hold the data, activates the appropriate circuitry within
the A/L unit to perform an operation, and then tells the
A/L unit which register to put the result in.
Machine Instructions
• Each CPU has a limited number of instructions it
can execute. These are called machine
instructions. These can be classified into 3 groups:
– Data transfer group
– Arithmetic/logic group
– Control group
Data transfer
• Instructions to move (copy) data from one location to
another.
– Fill a register with the contents of a memory cell -- LOAD
– Copy the contents in a register to a memory cell -- STORE
– I/O instructions (to communicate with other parts of the computer)
Arithmetic/Logic
• Instructions to perform operations within the A/L unit.
–
–
–
–
–
ADD
AND
OR
Shift bits within a register -- SHIFT
Shift bits within a register but keep ones that fall off -- ROTATE
Control
• Instructions to direct the execution of the program.
– Stop doing something -- HALT
– Execute a different instruction than the one next in line,
conditionally or unconditionally -- JUMP
The Stored-Program Concept
• Early machines -- Data was one thing and
programs were another. (Not very flexible)
• Today -- Data and programs are both represented
in binary. The program is stored in main memory
just as the data is. This is called the . . .
Stored-program concept
Stored-Program Concept
• Benefits:
– Very flexible. We can run many different programs on
the same machine without any physical modifications.
– Machines can be mass produced and then people can
decide later what they will do.
• Requirements:
– We must have a way to write instructions in binary (just
as our data is) and then have a way for the computer to
interpret and execute them.
Machine Language
• A machine instruction is a single binary sequence
that is divided up into two parts:
– An op-code field -- The operation code to perform.
– An operand field -- The locations and/or values for the
operation.
2 byte machine instruction:
01101101 01101111
6
Op-code
D
6
F
Operand field
Program Execution
• To execute a program we need more organization
in the control unit:
– We get this organization from two special-purpose
registers called the program counter and the instruction
register.
• The program counter holds the address (in main
memory) of the next instruction to be executed.
This enables the machine to keep track of where it
is in the program. (The program is usually stored in
main memory with the instructions written in consecutive
order.)
• The instruction register holds the complete
instruction (op-code + operand) being executed.
Basic Machine Cycle
1. Fetch an instruction from memory
– Increment the program counter
Decode
2. Decode the instruction
3. Execute the instruction.
Go to step 1.
Fetch
Execute
Machine Cycle and the Clock
• The machine cycle is run continuously through the use of a
clock. The clock is a regular signal (pulse train of 0
followed by a 1followed by a 0, etc., or more correctly a
voltage pulse train of off voltage, on voltage, ...) driven by
an oscillator set at a particular frequency. This is the
“MHz” of the machine (500 MHz == 500 million
cycles/second, GHz = billion of cycles/second). This is the
number of machine cycles performed per second.
• When comparing the capabilities of different computers we
cannot simply compare clock frequencies . . .
Sect. 2.5: Communicating with Other Devices
• The core of a computer is made up of the CPU and
Main Memory. How does this core communicate
with all the other devices: (CD, Modem, Monitor,
Hard Drive, . . .?
– With an intermediary device called a controller.
– See Figure 2.8
Controller
• 1 controller for each device.
• A little computer all its own that runs a program to
interface with the CPU and the particular device
being run.
• Listens for signals from the CPU and acts
accordingly by “controlling” the device to perform
whatever function desired by the CPU.
• If it can directly access (read/write) the Main
Memory then it has Direct Memory Access or
DMA.
Controller, con’t
• Many controllers, all with DMA, can have a disabling
effect on the performance of the computer. This is
known as the von Neumann bottleneck.
– This is where the CPU and all the controllers are competing
for bus access.
• How, exactly, does the CPU access a device (through a
controller)?
– Memory-mapped I/O communication system.
• The CPU executes instructions for the device as if it were
in main memory. It executes a LOAD, or STORE, … But
the address does not correspond to an address in main
memory. The main memory is designed to ignore this
instruction, while the particular controller is designed to
respond to it. See Fig. 2.9 The address is called a port.
Data transfer between components
• Rarely a one-way conversation.
• Components “talk” to each other.
– e.g. The CPU sends commands and data to the printer.
The printer and CPU “talk” back and forth through the
controller. CPU -- fast, Printer -- slow.
Communication: CPU, “Printer, ready?”, Printer,
“Ready”, CPU, “Sending data”, Printer, “OK”, Printer,
“Buffer full, quit sending data”, CPU, “OK”, …
– Typical command: Status Word.
• The status word is a binary sequence where each bit
corresponds to the condition of the device. E.g. bits may
correspond to: “Ready”, or “Not ready”, “paper tray full” or
“paper tray empty”, …
Data Communication Rates
• Data transfer rates are typically measured in bits
per second, or bps. (i.e. bits/second)
• When rates are high we will use: Kbps, Mbps, or
Gbps:
– Kbps = kilo bits/second = 1000 bps (not 1024 bps!)
– Mbps = mega bits/second = 1 x 106 bps
– Gbps = giga bits/second = 1 x 109 bps
• Two basic types of communication schemes:
– Parallel communication
• All bits are sent at the same time on different wires (one wire
per bit)
• Fast, but requires relatively complex electronics
• Internal bus, standard components
– Serial communication
•
•
•
•
•
Transfer of one bit at a time over a single wire.
Slow, but requires only simple electronics.
Communication between computers, modems, some printers.
Phone lines are inherently serial.
Example: USB peripherals -- Universal Serial Bus
Other Architectures
• Two common architectures for CPU’s:
– Complex Instruction Set Computer
(CISC)
• Intel Pentium/Celeron series (20 year old architecture!)
– Reduced Instruction Set Computer
(RISC)
• IBM, Motorola PowerPC, DEC/Compaq Alpha, Silicon
Graphics MIPS chips, Sun Microsystems UltraSparc
– Other: Intel’s Merced CPU goes beyond both these with
a completely new architecture (EPIC)
• Other interesting things …
– Pipelining: Pre-fetching an instruction. Fetching more
instructions than needed so the next one will be ready
faster. (A waste of time if the current instruction is a
jump.)
• Most of the time, however, this increases throughput (the total
amount of work a machine can accomplish in a given amount
of time).
– Parallel processing:
• “Simulated” parallel processing
• True parallel processing (requires more than 1 CPU per
machine) New multi core processors and Master- Slave
configurations.