Information and

Communication
Technology
Luk Yin Shun
Compulsory: Chapter 11 The System Unit of a Computer System
11.1 The Components of a Computer
System unit:
o a case that contains circuit boards, a power supply and storage
o provide sockets for the central processing unit, memory chips and expansion slots for additional
circuit boards
Motherboard: the main circuit board in a system unit

11.2 CPU
Peripherals: hardware devices connected to the system unit
CPU: execute the instructions of a computer program and process data to do specific tasks
ALU: perform arithmetic and logical operations
CU: keeps track of the sequence of instructions being processed
Registers: provide storage space for ALU and CU

Registers Sub-branch/Function
Accumulator (AX) store the intermediate and the final results of a
calculation

Base registers (BX)

GPRs
Counter (CX)

Data Register (DX)

Control Registers provide temporary memory for CU to control the operation instructions
store a number of flag bits indicating the status after the execution of instructions
Status registers it is used in the instructions of conditional testing and program branching

contains the instruction to be executed by the CPU

Instruction Registers
contains the memory address of the next instruction to be executed
Program Counter
holds the memory address where data will be transferred to or form.
MAR
contains the data to be written in to or read form the location specified in the MAR
MDR

System bus:
o a physical wiring that connects various components of a computer system
o used to transmit data between the CPU and other components
Bus Type Function
Data Bus Transfer data and instructions

Address Bus Transfer the source address or the destination

address of data

Control Bus Indicate the direction of the data transfer and

coordinate the timing of the event during transfer

Bus width: the size of a bus which determines the number of bits of data
USB: a plug and play standard

11.3 Machine Cycle

Machine Cycle:
o the process of executing an instruction in a CPU

Sub-cycle Description
Fetch Read the next instruction from the main memory
into instruction register (IR)

Decode Identify the operation code and operands in an

instruction

Execute Interrupt the operation code and perform the

required operation

11.4 Measurement of CPU speed

Measured in Hertz(Hz)
1 Hz = 1 clock cycle
Word length: the number of bits of data and instructions the CPU can handle at one time.
word length = data can be processed + instructions can be included in the instruction set + complication
of instructions can be included in the instruction set
11.5 Main Memory
RAM:
o an integrated circuit that
o used as the main memory in the computer to temporarily hold the data nad instructions of application
software and the operating system
o volatile
o contents change constantly
o Processing speed > hard disk

DRAM SRAM
Speed (Clock Rate) Lower Higher
Cost Lower Higher
Power Consumption Higher Lower
Storage Capacity Larger Smaller
Application Computer main memory, game CPU cache, hard disk buffer, Printer
console buffer,PDA

ROM
o stores the permanent information supplied by the manufacturer
o contains the bootstrap program: a sequence of instructions that loads and initralizes the operating system
o contains the basic input/output system (BIOS)
o Non volatile

Cache
o High speed memory
o stores data and instructions that have been recently used by the CPU
o Searched first

Complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)

o a memory chip which can store data for a long time even the power supply is switched off.
o holds the basic information computer system

Double-Data-Rate (DD3) SDRAM

o 600 800Hz
o 12800MBps
o 16GB