Functional Units of Digital System

o A computer organization describes the functions and design of the

various units of a digital system.
o A general-purpose computer system is the best-known example of a
digital system. Other examples include telephone switching
exchanges, digital voltmeters, digital counters, electronic calculators
and digital displays.
o Computer architecture deals with the specification of the instruction
set and the hardware units that implement the instructions.
o Computer hardware consists of electronic circuits, displays, magnetic
and optic storage media and also the communication facilities.
o Functional units are a part of a CPU that performs the operations and
calculations called for by the computer program.
o Functional units of a computer system are parts of the CPU (Central
Processing Unit) that performs the operations and calculations called
for by the computer program. A computer consists of five main
components namely, Input unit, Central Processing Unit, Memory unit
Arithmetic & logical unit, Control unit and an Output unit.
Input unit
o Input units are used by the computer to read the data. The most commonly
used input devices are keyboards, mouse, joysticks, trackballs, microphones,
etc.
o However, the most well-known input device is a keyboard. Whenever a key is
pressed, the corresponding letter or digit is automatically translated into its
corresponding binary code and transmitted over a cable to either the
memory or the processor.

Central processing unit

o Central processing unit commonly known as CPU can be referred as an
electronic circuitry within a computer that carries out the instructions given
by a computer program by performing the basic arithmetic, logical, control
and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions.

Memory unit
o The Memory unit can be referred to as the storage area in which programs
are kept which are running, and that contains data needed by the running
programs.
o The Memory unit can be categorized in two ways namely, primary memory
and secondary memory.
o It enables a processor to access running execution applications and services
that are temporarily stored in a specific memory location.
o Primary storage is the fastest memory that operates at electronic speeds.
Primary memory contains a large number of semiconductor storage cells,
capable of storing a bit of information. The word length of a computer is
between 16-64 bits.
o It is also known as the volatile form of memory, means when the computer is
shut down, anything contained in RAM is lost.
o Cache memory is also a kind of memory which is used to fetch the data very
soon. They are highly coupled with the processor.
o The most common examples of primary memory are RAM and ROM.
 o Secondary memory is used when a large amount of data and programs have
to be stored for a long-term basis.
o It is also known as the Non-volatile memory form of memory, means the data
is stored permanently irrespective of shut down.
o The most common examples of secondary memory are magnetic disks,
magnetic tapes, and optical disks.

Arithmetic & logical unit

o Most of all the arithmetic and logical operations of a computer are executed
in the ALU (Arithmetic and Logical Unit) of the processor. It performs
arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and
also the logical operations like AND, OR, NOT operations.

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Control unit
o The control unit is a component of a computer's central processing unit that
coordinates the operation of the processor. It tells the computer's memory,
arithmetic/logic unit and input and output devices how to respond to a
program's instructions.
o The control unit is also known as the nerve center of a computer system.
o Let's us consider an example of addition of two operands by the instruction
given as Add LOCA, RO. This instruction adds the memory location LOCA to
the operand in the register RO and places the sum in the register RO. This
instruction internally performs several steps.

Output Unit
o The primary function of the output unit is to send the processed results to the
user. Output devices display information in a way that the user can
understand.
o Output devices are pieces of equipment that are used to generate
information or any other response processed by the computer. These devices
display information that has been held or generated within a computer.
o The most common example of an output device is a monitor.
Computer: A computer is a combination of hardware and
software resources which integrate together and provides various
functionalities to the user. Hardware are the physical components of a
computer like the processor, memory devices, monitor, keyboard etc. while
software is the set of programs or instructions that are required by the
hardware resources to function properly.
There are a few basic components that aids the working-cycle of a computer
i.e. the Input- Process- Output Cycle and these are called as the functional
components of a computer. It needs certain input, processes that input and
produces the desired output. The input unit takes the input, the central
processing unit does the processing of data and the output unit produces the
output. The memory unit holds the data and instructions during the
processing.
Digital Computer: A digital computer can be defined as a programmable
machine which reads the binary data passed as instructions, processes this
binary data, and displays a calculated digital output. Therefore, Digital
computers are those that work on the digital data.

Details of Functional Components of a Digital Computer

 Input Unit :The input unit consists of input devices that are attached to
the computer. These devices take input and convert it into binary
language that the computer understands. Some of the common input
devices are keyboard, mouse, joystick, scanner etc.
 Central Processing Unit (CPU) : Once the information is entered into the
computer by the input device, the processor processes it. The CPU is
called the brain of the computer because it is the control center of the
computer. It first fetches instructions from memory and then interprets
them so as to know what is to be done. If required, data is fetched from
memory or input device. Thereafter CPU executes or performs the
required computation and then either stores the output or displays on the
output device. The CPU has three main components which are
responsible for different functions – Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), Control
Unit (CU) and Memory registers
 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) : The ALU, as its name suggests
performs mathematical calculations and takes logical decisions.
Arithmetic calculations include addition, subtraction, multiplication and
 division. Logical decisions involve comparison of two data items to see
which one is larger or smaller or equal.
 Control Unit : The Control unit coordinates and controls the data flow in
and out of CPU and also controls all the operations of ALU, memory
registers and also input/output units. It is also responsible for carrying out
all the instructions stored in the program. It decodes the fetched
instruction, interprets it and sends control signals to input/output devices
until the required operation is done properly by ALU and memory.
 Memory Registers : A register is a temporary unit of memory in the CPU.
These are used to store the data which is directly used by the processor.
Registers can be of different sizes(16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit and so on) and
each register inside the CPU has a specific function like storing data,
storing an instruction, storing address of a location in memory etc. The
user registers can be used by an assembly language programmer for
storing operands, intermediate results etc. Accumulator (ACC) is the main
register in the ALU and contains one of the operands of an operation to
be performed in the ALU.
 Memory : Memory attached to the CPU is used for storage of data and
instructions and is called internal memory The internal memory is divided
into many storage locations, each of which can store data or instructions.
Each memory location is of the same size and has an address. With the
help of the address, the computer can read any memory location easily
without having to search the entire memory. when a program is executed,
it’s data is copied to the internal memory and is stored in the memory till
the end of the execution. The internal memory is also called the Primary
memory or Main memory. This memory is also called as RAM, i.e.
Random Access Memory. The time of access of data is independent of its
location in memory, therefore this memory is also called Random Access
memory (RAM). Read this for different types of RAMs
 Output Unit : The output unit consists of output devices that are attached
with the computer. It converts the binary data coming from CPU to human
understandable form. The common output devices are monitor, printer,
plotter etc.

Interconnection between Functional Components

A computer consists of input unit that takes input, a CPU that processes the
input and an output unit that produces output. All these devices
communicate with each other through a common bus. A bus is a
transmission path, made of a set of conducting wires over which data or
information in the form of electric signals, is passed from one component to
another in a computer. The bus can be of three types – Address bus, Data
bus and Control Bus.
Following figure shows the connection of various functional components:

The address bus carries the address location of the data or instruction. The
data bus carries data from one component to another and the control bus
carries the control signals. The system bus is the common communication
path that carries signals to/from CPU, main memory and input/output
devices. The input/output devices communicate with the system bus through
the controller circuit which helps in managing various input/output devices
attached to the computer.
Register Transfer Language (RTL)
In symbolic notation, it is used to describe the micro-operations
transfer among registers. It is a kind of intermediate representation
(IR) that is very close to assembly language, such as that which is
used in a compiler.The term “Register Transfer” can perform micro-
operations and transfer the result of operation to the same or other
register.
Micro-operations :
The operation executed on the data store in registers are called
micro-operations. They are detailed low-level instructions used in
some designs to implement complex machine instructions.
Register Transfer :
The information transformed from one register to another register is
represented in symbolic form by replacement operator is called
Register Transfer.
Replacement Operator :
In the statement, R2 <- R1, <- acts as a replacement operator. This
statement defines the transfer of content of register R1 into register
R2.
There are various methods of RTL –

1. General way of representing a register is by the name of the

register enclosed in a rectangular box as shown in (a).

2. Register is numbered in a sequence of 0 to (n-1) as shown in (b).

3. The numbering of bits in a register can be marked on the top of

the box as shown in (c).

4. A 16-bit register PC is divided into 2 parts- Bits (0 to 7) are

assigned with lower byte of 16-bit address and bits (8 to 15) are
assigned with higher bytes of 16-bit address as shown in (d).
Basic symbols of RTL :
Symbol Description Example

Letters and MAR, R1,

Denotes a Register
Numbers R2

R1(8-bit)
() Denotes a part of register
R1(0-7)

<- Denotes a transfer of information R2 <- R1

R1 <- R2
Specify two micro-operations of Register
,
Transfer R2 <- R1

P : R2 <- R1
: Denotes conditional operations
if P=1

Naming Operator Denotes another name for an already existing

Ra := R1
(:=) register/alias

Register Transfer Operations:

The operation performed on the data stored in the registers are
referred to as register transfer operations.
There are different types of register transfer operations:
1. Simple Transfer – R2 <- R1
The content of R1 are copied into R2 without affecting the content
of R1. It is an unconditional type of transfer operation.
2. Conditional Transfer –
It indicates that if P=1, then the content of R1 is transferred to R2. It
is a unidirectional operation.
3. Simultaneous Operations –
If 2 or more operations are to occur simultaneously then they are
separated with comma (,).

If the control function P=1, then load the content of R1 into R2 and
at the same clock load the content of R2 into R1.