Y10!30!04-2024-Components of The Central Processing Unit
Y10!30!04-2024-Components of The Central Processing Unit
Science
With: Mr Mike
Components of the central processing unit (CPU)
The main components of the CPU are the Control Unit (CU), Arithmetic & Logic
Unit (ALU) and system clock.
The main components of the CPU are the Control Unit (CU), Arithmetic & Logic
Unit (ALU) and system clock.
The address of the location where the instruction can be found is stored in the
Program Counter (PC).
This instruction is then interpreted using the Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle (see later
in this section).
Control Unit (CU)
The main components of the CPU are the Control Unit (CU), Arithmetic & Logic
Unit (ALU) and system clock.
During that process, signals are generated along the control bus to tell the other
components in the computer what to do.
The control unit ensures synchronisation of data flow and program instructions
throughout the computer.
A system clock is used to produce timing signals on the control bus to ensure this vital
synchronisation takes place – without the clock the computer would simply crash!
The RAM
The RAM holds all the data and programs needed to be accessed by the CPU.
The CPU takes data and programs held in backing store (e.g. a hard disk drive) and
puts them into RAM temporarily.
This is done because read/write operations carried out using the RAM are considerably
faster than read/write operations to backing store; consequently,
One of the most fundamental components of the von Neumann system are the
registers.
A full list of the registers used in this textbook are summarised in Table 3.1. The use of
these registers is explained more fully in the Fetch–Decode–Execute cycle (see later
in this section).
Registers
Pop Quiz
1. What does CPU stand for?
Central Processing Unit
2. What does ALU stand for?