Computer Architecture

Binary #

2's complement #

Minimum: $-2^{n-1}$, Maximum: $2^{n-1} - 1$

Number negation:

  1. Take the complement
  2. Add 1

IEEE Floating Point #

Standard for representing floating point numbers.

A 32-bit floating point number has:

  • 1 bit sign (positive or negative)
  • 8 bit exponent
  • 23 bit fraction

Convert decimal to IEEE Floating Point:

  1. Assign the sign accordingly and continue with the positive part the number
  2. Write your number in base-2 using fixed point notation
  3. Put your number in scientific notation (move the fixed point)
  4. The exponent is 127 + power of scientific notation in binary
  5. The fraction is the fractional part left over

Binary Coded Decimal #

4 bits represent the numbers one to 9, if another decimal digit is required 4 bits are added.

Logic circuits #

Transistors #

  • Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS): Type of transistor most modern computers are made of
  • Source: Higer voltage current
  • Drain: Lower voltage current
  • Gate: Electronic gate that can be opened or closed based on transistor type
  • N-type MOS transistor: Closed if gate is powered, open when gate isn't powered
  • P-type MOS transistor: Closed 'by default', open when gate is powered
  • Complementary MOS (CMOS) circuits:: Circuits that both contain P-type and N-type transistors because they act in a complementary way

Logic Gates #

Know your logic :).

  • NOT
  • (N)AND
  • (N)OR
  • XOR

Note that both NAND and NOR are logically complete, you can create any other circuit by combining NAND or NOR gates.

Combinational logic circuits #

  • Decoder: Decodes a bit pattern, has an output for every possible input permutation
  • Multiplexer (MUX): Selects an input to connect to the output based on the select signal
  • Full Adder (1 bit adder): Calculates the sum of two bits and a carry-in, also produces a carry-out. Can be chained to sum larger numbers.

Memory #

  • Address space: Total number of uniquely identifiable memory locations

  • Addressibiliy: Number of bits stored in each memory location

  • x-by-y-bit memory: Memory with an address space of x and an adressibility of y.

  • Memory Address Register (MAR): The address of the memory cell to load/store

  • Memory Data Register (MDR): The contents/data of the loaded/stored memory cell

  • R-S Latch

    • Setting
    • Resetting

  • Gated D Latch: value set to D if Write Enable (WE) is 1

  • Flip-Flop: The value D latches changes immediately which causes problems with finite state machines, the Flip-Flip ensures that the change takes after the current clock cycle.

    • The current state can be read throughout the current clock cycle
    • Next state is written at the beginning of the next clock cycle (and does not affect the current state)
    • Example: master/slave D-latch

ALU #

Arithmetic Logic Unit

Control Unit #

Central Processing Unit (CPU) : The central part of any computer

Register : Extra temporary storage

General Purpose Registers (GPRs) : Registers that can be used by programs

Special Purpose Registers (SPRs) : Registers with a special purpose

Instruction Register (IR) : SPR that stores the current instruction

Program Counter (PC) : SPR that stores the address in memory of the instruction being executed

ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) #

  • Operate: +-*!
  • Data movement: memory
  • Control: %$

Vonn Neumann Model #

  • Program & data stored in memory
  • Sequential instructions

Operating Systems #

Goals:

  • Resource management: memory, I/O, CPU usage
  • Convenient interface: TRAP instructions

I/O #

Privilage & priority #

  • Privilage: What is the software allowed to do?
    • User programs aren't allowed to access to the operating system
  • Priority: Which software is more urgent to execute?
    • High priority:
      • Power iterruption
      • Keyboard input
    • User programs: lowest level

Processor Status Register (PSR) #

  • PSR[15] Privilage (0 = supervisor, 1 = unprivilged)
  • PSR[10:8] Priority level (PL) (0 = lowest, 7 = highest)
  • PSR[2:0] Condition codes

Memory #

  • System space x0000 - x2FFF: Requires supervisor privilege to access, contains operating system.

  • User space x3000 - XFDFF: User programs are executed here, no supervisor privilage required.

  • Memory mapped-IO xFE00 - xFFFF: Not actual memory but mapped to special registers. The advantage of memory mapped I/O is that no extra instructions are required to control I/O devices.

Input & output (I/O) #

  • Polling: processor checks if ready bit is set so it knows when it is time to read the device register
  • Interrupt-driven I/O: An I/O device can force the running program to stop (interrupt)
    • Only interrupts with a higher priority than the current process will interrupt it.

Keyboard #

  • Keyboard Data Register (KBDR): contains the character pressed
  • Keyboard Status Register (KBSR): contains the ready bit

When a key is pressed, the ASCII code is set in the KBDR. KBSR read

Service Routines #

Aka. syscalls, LC-3 TRAP Routines

Trap table: stores locations of service routines RTI: Return from Trap or interrupt

  1. LC-3
  2. Assembly