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The nerve center of a PC is the processor, also called the CPU, or central processing unit. This is built into a single chip which executes program instructions and coordinates the activities that take place within the computer system. The chip itself is a small piece of silicon with a complex electrical circuit called an integrated circuit. The processor consiste of three main parts: 1) The control unit examines the instructions in the user's program, interprets each instruction and causes the circuits and the rest of the components - monitor, disk drives, etc. - to execute the functions specified. 2) The arithmetic logic unit (ALU) performs mathematical calculaitons and logical operations. 3) The registers are high-speed units of memory used to store and control data. One of the registers (the program counter, or PC) keeps track of the next insruction to be performed in the main memory. The other (the insruction register, or IR) holds the instruction that is being executed. The power and performance of a computer is partly determined by the speed of its processor. A system clock sends out signals at fixed intervals to measure and synchronize the flow of a data. Clock speed is measured in gigahertz. RAM and ROM The program and data which pass through the processor must be loaded into the main memory in order to be processed. Therefore, when the user runs a program, the CPU looks for it on the hard disk and transfers a copy into the RAM chips. RAM (random access memory) is volatile - that is, its information is lost when the computer is turned off. However, ROM (read only memory) is non-volatile, containing instructions and routines for the basic operations of the CPU. The BIOS uses ROM to control communication with peripherals. RAM capacity can be expanded by adding extra chips, usually contained is small circuit boards called dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs). BUSES The main circuit boards inside your system is called the motherboard and contains the processor, the memory chips, expansions slots, and controllers for peripherals, connected by buses - electrical channels which allow devices inside the computer to communicate with each other. For example, the front side bus carries all data that passes from the CPU to other devices. The size of a bus, called bus width, determines how much data can be transmitted. |
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