Computer Organization and Architectures

CoSc2021

Chapter Three: Assembly level Machine organization

Class Lecture

February 15, 2023

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 The Computer System
At a top level, a computer consists : CPU , memory and I/O components, with one or more
modules of each type. These components are interconnected by buses.
System Buses : Interconnecting Basic Components
Computer Components
The von Neumann architecture is based on three key concepts:
• Data and instructions are stored in a single read-write memory
• The contents of this memory are addressable by location, without regard to the type of
data contained there
• Execution occurs in a sequential fashion (unless explicitly modified) from one
instruction to the next
Two approaches to programming
• hardwired programming - constructing a configuration of hardware logic components
to perform a particular set of arithmetic and logic operations on a set of data
• software - a sequence of codes or instructions, each of which supply the necessary
control signals to a general-purpose configuration of control and logic functions (which
may themselves be hardwired programs)

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 Computer Components (cont…)
Other components needed
 I/O Components - a means to:
 accept data and instructions in some form, and convert to an internal form of
signals report results
 Main memory
 distinguished from external storage/peripherals
 a place to temporarily store both:
 instructions - data interpreted as codes for generating control signals
 data - data upon which computations are performed
 Interactions among Computer Components
 Memory Address Register – specifies address for next read or write
 Memory Buffer Register – contains data to be written into or receives data read
from memory
 I/O address register - specifies a particular I/O device
 I/O buffer register - used for exchange of data between an I/O module and
CPU (or memory)

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 Computer Components (cont…)
 Memory module - a set of locations with sequentially numbered addresses each
holds a binary number that can be either an instruction or data.

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 Instruction Cycle:- Fetch and Execute
 A Program storing in the memory unit of the computer consists of a sequence of
instructions. The program is executed in the computer by going through a cycle for
each instruction.
 Processing required for a single instruction is called an instruction cycle.
  In its simplest form, instruction processing consists of two steps:
1. The processor reads ( fetches) instructions from memory one at a time
2. Executes each instruction

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 Instruction Cycle(cont…)
 Fetch - CPU reads an instruction from a location in memory
 Program counter (PC) register keeps track of which instruction executes next
 Normally, CPU increments PC after each fetch, Unless told otherwise
 Fetched instruction is loaded into the instruction register (IR)
 Execute - CPU executes the instruction
 May involve several operations
 May utilize previously changed state of CPU and (indirectly) other devices
General categories:
 CPU-Memory: Data may be transferred from CPU to memory or vice-versa
 CPU-IO: Data may be transferred between CPU and an I/O module
 Data Processing: CPU may perform some arithmetic or logic operation on the
data
 Control: An instruction may specify that the sequence of execution be altered
eg. Jump.

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 Characteristics of a Hypothetical Machine

(a) Instruction format

(b) Integer format

(c) Internal CPU registers
Program counter (PC) _ Address of instruction
Instruction register (IR) _ Instruction being executed
Accumulator (AC) _ Temporary storage

(d) Partial list of opcodes

0001 _ Load AC from memory
0010 _ Store AC to memory
0101 _ Add to AC from memory
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 Example of Program Execution (contents of memory and registers in
hexadecimal)

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 Three instructions, which can be described as three fetch and three execute
cycles, are required:
1. The PC contains 300, the address of the first instruction. This instruction (the value 1940 in
hexadecimal) is loaded into the instruction register IR and the PC is incremented. Note that
this process involves the use of a memory address register (MAR) and a memory buffer register
(MBR). For simplicity, these intermediate registers are ignored.
2. The first 4 bits (first hexadecimal digit) in the IR indicate that the AC is to be loaded. The
remaining 12 bits (three hexadecimal digits) specify the address (940) from which data are to
be loaded.
3. The next instruction (5941) is fetched from location 301 and the PC is incremented.
4. The old contents of the AC and the contents of location 941 are added and the result is stored in
the AC.
5. The next instruction (2941) is fetched from location 302 and the PC is incremented.
6. The contents of the AC are stored in location 941.

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 Instruction Cycle State
 The execution cycle for a particular instruction may involve more than one reference to
memory. Also, instead of memory references, an instruction may specify an I/O operation.
The states can be described as follows:
 Instruction address calculation (iac): Determine the address of the next instruction to be
executed. This involves adding a fixed number to the address of the previous instruction
 Instruction fetch (if): Read instruction from its memory location into the processor.
 Instruction operation decoding (iod): Analyze instruction to determine type of operation to
be performed and operand(s) to be used.
 Operand address calculation (oac): If the operation involves reference to an operand in
memory or available via I/O, then determine the address of the operand.
 Operand fetch (of): Fetch the operand from memory or read it in from I/O.
 Data operation (do): Perform the operation indicated in the instruction.
 Operand store (os): Write the result into memory or out to I/O.

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 Instruction Cycle State Diagram
States in the upper part involve an exchange between the processor and either memory or an
I/O module.
 States in the lower part of the diagram involve only internal processor operations.
The oac state appears twice, because an instruction may involve a read, a write, or both.
However, the action performed during that state is fundamentally the same in both cases, and so
only a single state identifier is needed.

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 Interrupts
 Interrupts are the mechanism by which other modules (e.g. I/O, memory)
may interrupt the normal processing of the processor
Classes of Interrupts
 Program :- Generated by some condition that occurs as a result of an instruction
execution, such as arithmetic overflow, division by zero, attempt to execute an
illegal machine instruction, or reference outside a user’s allowed memory space.
 Timer :- Generated by a timer within the processor. This allows the operating
system to perform certain functions on a regular basis.
 Used in pre-emptive multi-tasking
 I/O :- Generated by an I/O controller to signal normal completion of an operation or
to signal a variety of error conditions.
 Hardware failure:- Generated by a failure such as power failure or memory parity
error.
 Interrupts are provided primarily as a way to improve processing efficiency.
For example, most external devices are much slower than the processor.

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 Program Flow Control without and with Interrupts

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 Interrupts and the interrupt cycle
 With interrupts, the processor can be engaged in executing other instructions while an
I/O operation is in progress.
 To accommodate interrupts, an interrupt cycle is added to the instruction cycle
 Processor checks for interrupt
o Indicated by an interrupt signal
 If no interrupts are pending the processor proceeds to the fetch cycle and fetches the
next instruction of the current program
 If interrupt pending:
o It suspends execution of the current program being executed and saves its context. This
means saving the address of the next instruction to be executed (current contents of the PC)
and any other data relevant to the processor’s current activity.
o Set PC(program counter) to start address of interrupt handler routine
o Process interrupt
o Restore context and continue interrupted program

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 Transfer of Control via Interrupts
The user program does not have to contain any special code to accommodate
interrupts; the processor and the operating system are responsible for suspending the user
program and then resuming it at the same point.

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 Instruction Cycle with Interrupts
Fetch :- read next instruction from memory into CPU
Execute :- Interpret the opcode and perform the indicated operation
 Interrupt :- if interrupts are enabled and one has occurred, save the current
process state and service the interrupt

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 Program Timing Short I/O Wait

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 Program Timing Long I/O Wait

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 Instruction Cycle (with Interrupts) - State Diagram

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 Multiple Interrupts
 Two approaches can be taken to dealing with multiple interrupts.
a) Disable interrupts :- means that the processor can and will ignore that interrupt
request signal.
 If an interrupt occurs during this time, it generally remains pending and will be
checked by the processor after the processor has enabled interrupts.
 when a user program is executing and an interrupt occurs, interrupts are disabled
immediately. After the interrupt handler routine completes, interrupts are enabled
before resuming the user program, and the processor checks to see if additional
interrupts have occurred.
 This approach is nice and simple, as interrupts are handled in strict sequential order.
 The drawback to this approach is that it does not take into account relative priority
or time-critical needs.
b) Define priorities:-Low priority interrupts can be interrupted by higher priority
interrupts
 When higher priority interrupt has been processed, processor returns to previous
interrupt

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 Multiple Interrupts - Sequential
 Sequential interrupt processing:- it is nice and simple, as interrupts are handled
in strict sequential order

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 Multiple Interrupts – Nested
Nested interrupt processing:- to define priorities for interrupts and to allow an
interrupt of higher priority to cause a lower-priority interrupt handler to be itself
interrupted

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 Time Sequence of Multiple Interrupts

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 Interconnection Structures
 A computer consists of a set of components or modules of three basic types
(processor, memory, I/O) that communicate with each other.
 All the units must be connected
 There must be paths for connecting the modules.
 The collection of paths connecting the various modules is called the interconnection
structure.
 The design of this structure will depend on the exchanges that must be made among
modules
 Different type of connection for different type of unit
 Memory
 Input/Output
 CPU

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 Computer Modules

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 Computer Modules(cont…)
 Memory Connection
 Receives and sends data
 Receives addresses (of locations)
 Receives control signals
• Read
• Write
• Timing
 CPU Connection
 Reads instruction and data
 Writes out data (after processing)
 Sends control signals to other units
 Receives (& acts on) interrupts

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 Computer Modules(cont…)
 Input/Output Connection
 Similar to memory from computer’s viewpoint
 Output
o Receive data from computer
o Send data to peripheral
 Input
o Receive data from peripheral
o Send data to computer
 Receive control signals from computer
 Send control signals to peripherals
o e.g. spin disk
 Receive addresses from computer
o e.g. port number to identify peripheral
 Send interrupt signals (control)

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 Computer Modules(cont…)
 The preceding list defines the data to be exchanged. The interconnection structure
must support the following types of transfers:
 Memory to processor: The processor reads an instruction or a unit of data from
memory.
 Processor to memory: The processor writes a unit of data to memory.
 I/O to processor: The processor reads data from an I/O device via an I/O module.
 Processor to I/O: The processor sends data to the I/O device.
 I/O to or from memory: For these two cases, an I/O module is allowed to exchange
data directly with memory, without going through the processor, using Direct
Memory Access (DMA).

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 Bus Interconnection
 A bus is a communication pathway connecting two or more devices.
 A key characteristic of a bus is that it is a shared transmission medium.
 Multiple devices connect to the bus, and a signal transmitted by any one device is
available for reception by all other devices attached to the bus.
 If two devices transmit during the same time period, their signals will overlap and
become garbled. Thus, only one device at a time can successfully transmit.
 A bus consists of multiple communication pathways, or lines.
 A bus that connects major computer components (processor, memory, I/O) is called a
system bus.
 There are many different bus designs, on any bus the lines can be classified into three
functional groups :- data, address, and control lines.
 In addition, there may be power distribution lines that supply power to the attached
modules

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 System bus(cont….)
1. Data Bus:- Carries data
• Remember that there is no difference between “data” and “instruction” at this
level
• Width is a key determinant of performance 8, 16, 32, 64 bit
2. Address bus:- Identify the source or destination of data
• e.g. CPU needs to read an instruction (data) from a given location in memory
• Bus width determines maximum memory capacity of system
• e.g. 8080 has 16 bit address bus giving 64k address space
3. Control Bus:- Control and timing information
• Memory read/write signal
• Interrupt request
• Clock signals

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 Bus Interconnection Scheme
If one module wishes to send data to another , it must do two things:
(1) obtain the use of the bus, and (2) transfer data via the bus.
 If one module wishes to request data from another module, it must (1) obtain the use of the
bus, and (2) transfer a request to the other module over the appropriate control and address lines.
It must then wait for that second module to
send the data.

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 Physical Realization of Bus Architecture
Physically, the system bus is actually a number of parallel electrical conductors.
In the following example, the bus consists of two vertical columns of conductors. At
regular intervals along the columns, there are attachment points in the form of slots that
extend out horizontally to support a printed circuit board.

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 Single Bus Problems
 Lots of devices on one bus leads to:
 Propagation delays:
• The more devices attached to the bus, the greater the bus length and hence the
greater the propagation delay. This delay determines the time it takes for
devices to coordinate the use of the bus. When control of the bus passes from
one device to another frequently, these propagation delays can noticeably
affect performance
• The bus may become a bottleneck as the aggregate data transfer demand
approaches the capacity of the bus. This problem can be countered to some
extent by increasing the data rate that the bus can carry and by using wider
buses (e.g., increasing the data bus from 32 to 64 bits). However, because the
data rates generated by attached devices (e.g., graphics and video controllers,
network interfaces) are growing rapidly, this is a race that a single bus is
ultimately destined to lose.
• Most systems use multiple buses to overcome these problems

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 Traditional (ISA) (with cache)

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 High Performance Bus

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 Elements of Bus Design Issues
Bus designers need to consider several issues to get the desired cost-performance
tradeoff. here is a list of the bus design issues:
Bus Width: Bus width refers to the data and address bus widths. System
performance improves with a wider data bus as we can move more bytes in parallel.
We increase the addressing capacity of the system by adding more address lines.
 Bus Type: there are two basic types of buses: dedicated and multiplexed.
Bus Operations: Bus systems support several types of operations to transfer data.
These include the read, write, block transfer, read-modify-writ, and interrupt.
Bus Arbitration: Bus arbitration can be done in one of two ways: centralized or
distributed.
 Bus Timing: buses can be designed as either synchronous or asynchronous.

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 Bus Types
Bus lines can be separated into two generic types:
a)Dedicated:- Separate data & address lines
b)Multiplexed:- Shared lines
• For example, address and data information may be transmitted over the same set
of lines using an Address Valid control line.
• Address valid or data valid control line
• Advantage - is the use of fewer lines, which saves space and, usually, cost.
• Disadvantages
• More complex circuitry is needed within each module.
• There is a potential reduction in performance because certain events that share the
same lines cannot take place in parallel.

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 Bus Arbitration
• In all but the simplest systems, more than one module may need control of the bus.
• For example, an I/O module may need to read or write directly to memory, without
sending the data to the processor.
• Because only one unit at a time can successfully transmit over the bus, some method
of arbitration is needed.
• The methods can be classified as being either centralized or distributed.
a) centralized scheme:- a single hardware device, referred to as a bus controller or
arbiter, is responsible for allocating time on the bus.
• The device may be a separate module or part of the processor(CPU)
a) distributed scheme:- there is no central controller. Rather, each module contains
access control logic and the modules act together to share the bus.
 With both methods of arbitration, the purpose is to designate one device, either the
processor or an I/O module, as master. The master may then initiate a data transfer
(e.g., read or write) with some other device, which acts as slave for this particular
exchange.

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 Timing
 Timing refers to the way in which events are coordinated on the bus.
 Buses use either synchronous timing or asynchronous timing.
 Synchronous
o Events determined by clock signals
o Control Bus includes clock line
o A single 1-0 is a bus cycle
o All devices can read clock line
o Usually sync on leading edge
o Usually a single cycle for an event
 Synchronous timing is simpler to implement and test. However, it is less
flexible than asynchronous timing. Because all devices on a synchronous bus are
tied to a fixed clock rate, the system cannot take this advantage in device
performance.
 With asynchronous timing, a mixture of slow and fast devices, using older
and newer technology, can share a bus.
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 Synchronous Timing Diagram

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 Asynchronous Timing – Read Diagram
Asynchronous timing :- the occurrence of one event on a bus follows and depends on the
occurrence of a previous event.

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 Asynchronous Timing – Write Diagram
Shows a simple asynchronous write operation. In this case, the master places the
data on the data line at the same time that is puts signals on the status and address lines.

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 PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnection) Bus
 It is a popular high-bandwidth, processor-independent bus that can function as a
mezzanine or peripheral bus.
 Compared with other common bus specifications, PCI delivers better system
performance for high-speed I/O subsystems (e.g., graphic display adapters, network
interface controllers, disk controllers, and so on).
 The current standard allows the use of up to 64 data lines at 66 MHz, for a raw
transfer rate of 528 MByte/s, or 4.224 Gbps. But it is not just a high speed that makes
PCI attractive.
 PCI is specifically designed to meet economically the I/O requirements of modern
systems; it requires very few chips to implement and supports other buses attached to
the PCI bus.
 Intel released to public domain
 32 or 64 bit
 50 lines

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 PCI Bus Lines (required)
These are divided into the following functional groups:
System pins: Include the clock and reset pins.
Address and data pins: Include 32 lines that are time multiplexed for addresses and
data. The other lines in this group are used to interpret and validate the signal lines that
carry the addresses and data.
Interface control pins: Control the timing of transactions and provide coordination
among initiators and targets.
Arbitration pins: Unlike the other PCI signal lines, these are not shared lines. Rather,
each PCI master has its own pair of arbitration lines that connect it directly to the PCI
bus arbiter.
Error reporting pins: Used to report parity and other errors.

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 PCI Bus Lines (Optional)
The PCI specification defines 51 optional signal lines divided into the following
functional groups
•Interrupt pins: These are provided for PCI devices that must generate requests for
service. As with the arbitration pins, these are not shared lines.
Each PCI device has its own interrupt line or lines to an interrupt controller.
•Cache support pins: These pins are needed to support a memory on PCI that can be
cached in the processor or another device.
•64-bit bus extension pins: Include 32 lines that are time multiplexed for addresses and
data and that are combined with the mandatory address/data lines to form a 64-bit
address/data bus. Other lines in this group are used to interpret and validate the signal
lines that carry the addresses and data. Finally, there are two lines that enable two PCI
devices to agree to the use of the 64-bit capability.
• JTAG/boundary scan pins: For testing procedures defined in IEEE Standard 1149.1.

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 PCI Commands
 Bus activity occurs in the form of transactions between an initiator, or master and a
target.
 When a bus master acquires control of the bus, it determines the type of transaction
that will occur next.
 Determine type of transaction
 e.g. I/O read/write
 Address phase
 One or more data phases

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 PCI Read Timing Diagram

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 PCI Bus Arbiter

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 PCI Bus Arbitration

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