Discovering Computers 2009

Introduction to Information Systems

CHAPTER 4

THE SYSTEM UNIT & MICROPROCESSORS

 The System Unit

What is the system unit? system unit

 Case that contains

electronic components
of the computer used
to process data
 Sometimes called
the chassis
system unit

system unit

system unit

p. 4.04 Fig. 4-1 Next

 The System Unit
What are common components inside the system unit?
 Processor power supply drive bays
 Memory
 Adapter cards processor

 Sound card
 Modem card ports
memory

 Video card
 Network card
 Ports
sound card
 Drive bays
 Power supply
video card
modem card
network card

p. 4.03 Fig. 4-2 Next

 The System Unit
adapter cards
What is the motherboard? processor chip

 Main circuit
board in system
unit
 C t i adapter
Contains d t memory chips

cards, processor
cchips,
ps, and
d
memory chips
 Also called
memory slots
system board Expansion
slots for
adapter cards motherboard

p. 4.04 Fig. 4-3 Next

 The System Unit
dduall inline
i li
packages (DIP)
What is a chip? holds memory
chips
 Small ppiece of semi-conductingg
material on which integrated
circuits are etched
 Integrated
I t t d circuits
i it contain
t i
many microscopic pathways
capable of carrying electrical
current
pin grid
 Chips are packaged so they can array (PGA)
package
be attached to a circuit board h ld processor
holds
chips

p. 4.04 Fig. 4-4 Next

 Central Processing Unit: Microprocessors

What is a personal computer processor?

 The single
g processor
p chip
p found in personal
p
computers
 Sometimes called a microprocessor
 Processors identified by
• Manufacturer
• Model name or
model number
Athlon™
Pentium® 4

Celeron™ Duron™
 Microprocessors since the Year 2000

2000: Intel Pentium 4

2001: AMD Athlon XP
2004: Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (Dual Core)
2005: AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual Core)
2006: Intel Core 2 Duo (Dual Core)
2007: Intel Quad Core Xeon (3 GHz) 410 mil transist
2008: AMD Phenom X4 (Quad Core)
2008
2008: IIntel
t lN
Nehalem
h l 731 million
illi transistors
t it
 Central Processing Unit: Microprocessors

Who are the personal computer processor manufacturers?

Note: Apple Computer, Inc began using Intel microprocessors in 2005

Intel
AMD
Pentium® (Intel-
Pentium® II compatible) Motorola
with Alpha
MMX™
MMX Duron™ PowerPC
AMD-K6®
(DEC)
Celeron™ Used in
Xeon™ Athlon™ Apples, Used in
It i ™
Itanium™ with 3DNow! iMACs workstations
™ and high-end
Dual Core
servers
Quad Core Used in PCs
Click to view video
p. 4.9
 Microprocessors

A microprocessor
p is a small calculating
g device usually
y used in our home PCs
which can easily fit in the palm of your hand. A microprocessor can do million of
calculations in a blink of an eye.
Devices which use microprocessors
 Central Processing Unit

What is the central processing unit (CPU)?

 Interprets and carries P
Processor
out basic instructions Control
Control Arithmetic
Arithmetic
Unit Logic
Logic Unit
Unit (ALU)
that operate a computer Unit (ALU)

 Control unit directs and Information

coordinates operations in Data
computer Information

 Arithmetic logic unit

(ALU) performs Input Output
Devices
Data Memory Information
Devices
arithmetic, comparison,
and logical operations
Information
 Also called the processor Data
Information

Storage
Devices
p. 4.05 Fig. 4-5 Next
 Central Processing Unit

What is a machine cycle?

 Four operations
p of the CPU comprise
p a machine cycle
y
Step 1. Fetch
Obtain program instruction
or data item from memory

Memory
Step 2
2.
Step 4. Store Decode
Write result to memory Translate
instruction into
Processor commands
ALU Control Unit
Step 3. Execute
Carry out command

p. 4.06 Fig. 4-6 Next

 Central Processing Unit

What is a register?
 Temporary
p y high-speed
g p storage
g area that holds
data and instructions [Data registers, Instruction
registers, Instruction Address registers,Address
registers etc]
registers,
Stores location
from where instruction
was fetched
Stores Stores data
instruction while it is while ALU
being decoded computes it
Stores results
of calculation

p. 4.07 Next
 Central Processing Unit

What is the system clock ? [Not the real-time clock!]

 Controls timing of all computer operations
 Generates regular electronic pulses, or ticks, that set
operating pace of components of system unit

Pace of system
clock is clock speed
Most clock speeds are Processor speed can
Each tick
in the gigahertz (GHz) also be measured in
is a
range (1 GHz = one millions of instructions
clock cycle
billion ticks of system per second (MIPS)
clock per second)
(Some run at 3.8 GHz)

p. 4.07 Next
 Central Processing Unit

What is a zero-insertion force (ZIF) socket?

 Allows y
you to install and remove chips
p with no force

lever
lever

Step 1. Step 2. Step 3.

Lift the lever on the socket. Insert the chip. Push the lever down.

p. 4.11 Fig. 4-10 Next

 Central Processing Unit

What are heat sinks and heat pipes?

 Heat sink—component
p
heat sink fan
with fins that cools
processor
 H t pipe
Heat i —smaller
e ll
device for notebook
computers
p

heat sink

p. 4.12 Fig. 4-11 Next

 Processor

What are heat sinks, heat pipes, and

liquid
q cooling?
g
 Heat sink—component
with fins that cools
processor
 Heat pipe —smaller
e

device for notebook

computers
 Liquid cooling—uses a
continuous flow
of fluids to transfer heat away

p. 193 Fig. 4-9 Next

 Central Processing Unit

What is a coprocessor?

Chip that assists processor in

performing specific tasks

One type is a floating

floating--point coprocessor
coprocessor, also
known as a math or numeric coprocessor

p. 4.12 Next
 Data Representation

How do computers represent data?

 Most computers
p are digital
g

 Recognize only two

discrete states: on or off
 Use a binary system to
recognize two states
 Use
U N Number
b system with ih
two unique digits: 0 and
1, called bits ((short for
binary digits)

p. 4.13 Fig. 4-13 Next

 Data Representation

What is a byte?
 Eight
g bits ggrouped
p together
g as a unit
 Provides enough different combinations of 0s and 1s
to represent 256 individual characters
 Numbers
b
 Uppercase
and lowercase
letters
 Punctuation
marks

p. 4.13 Fig. 4-14 Next

 Data Representation
What are three popular coding systems to represent data?
 ASCII—American Standard Code for Information Interchange g
 EBCDIC—Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
 Unicode—coding scheme capable of representing all
world’ss languages (16 bits per character; 65,536 symbols)
world

ASCII Symbol EBCDIC

00110000 0 11110000
00110001 1 11110001
00110010 2 11110010
00110011 3 11110011

p. 4.14 Next
 Memory
Seat DCF2 Seat DCF3
What is memory?
 Electronic components that
store instructions, data, and
results
 Consists of one or
more chips on
motherboard or
other
th circuit
i it board
b d
 Each byte stored
in unique location
called an address,
similar to addresses
on a passenger train

p. 4.15 Fig. 4-17 Next

 Memory

How is memory measured?

 By
y the number of bytes
y available for storage
g

Term Abbreviation Approximate Size

Kilobyte KB or K 1 thousand bytes
Megabyte MB 1 million bytes
Gigabyte GB 1 billion bytes
Terabyte TB 1 trillion bytes

p. 4.16 Fig. 4-18 Next

 Memory

What is CMOS?

Complementary Used in some

metal-oxide RAM chips, flash
semiconductor memory chips, and
memory other types of
memory chips

Uses battery Stores date,

power to retain time, and
information when computer’s
p
other power is hardware
turned off information

p. 200 Next
 Memory

What is access time?

 Amount of time it takes processor
to read data from memory
 Measured in nanoseconds (ns),
one billionth of a second
 It takes 1/10 of a second to blink
your eye; a computer can perform
up to 10 million
i i operations
i in
i same amount off
time (100 million operations in one full second)
Term Speed
Millisecond One-thousandth of a second
Microsecond One-millionth of a second
Nanosecond One-billionth of a second
Picosecond One-trillionth of a second

p. 200 Figs. 4-25-4-26 Next

 Memory & Storage Terms
KILOBYTE (KB) 2^10 = 1024 BYTES ( thousand bytes) 10^3

MEGABYTE ((MB)) 2^20 = 1,048,576

, , BYTES (million
( bytes)
y ) 10^6

GIGABYTE (GB) 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 BYTES (billion bytes) 10^9

TERABYTE (TB) 2^40 = 1024 x 1,073,741,824 (trillion bytes) 10^12

PETABYTE (PB) 2^50 = million x billion bytes 10^15

EXABYTE (EB) 2^60 = billion x billion bytes 10^18

ZETTABYTE (ZB) 2^70

2 70 = billion x trillion bytes 10^21
10 21

YOTTABYTE (YB) 2^80 = trillion x trillion bytes 10^24

p. 4.16 Fig. 4-18 Next

 Memory

What is random access memory (RAM)?

Memory chips that can be

read from and written
to byy p
processor
Most RAM is
Also called
volatile,, it is lost
volatile
main memory
when computer’s
or primary
power is
storage
turned off

The more RAM a

computer has, the
faster it responds

p. 4.17 Next
 Memory
How do program instructions transfer in and out of RAM?
RAM Step 1. When you start the computer, certain
operating system files load into RAM from the
Operating system Operating system hard disk. The operating system displays the user
instructions interface interface on the screen.

Step 2. When you start a Web browser, the

program’s instructions load into RAM from the
Web browser Web browser hard disk. The Web browser window is displayed
instructions window on the screen.

Step 3. When you start a word processing

program, the program’s instructions load into
RAM ffrom ththe hard
h d disk.
di k Th
The word d processing
i
Word processing Word processing program, along with the Web Browser and certain
program instructions program window operating system instructions are in RAM. The
word processing program window is displayed on
the screen.
RAM
Step 4. When you quit a program, such as the
Web browser, its program instructions are
removed from RAM. The Web browser no longer
is displayed on the screen.

Web browser program Web browser

instructions are window no longer is
removed from RAM displayed on
p. 4.17 Fig. 4-19 Next
desktop
 Memory

What are two basic types of RAM chips?

Used for
Most special
common applications
type such as
cache
(SRAM)
Static
Faster
Dynamic
RAM Faster and
variations RAM more reliable
of DRAM are
SDRAM and (DRAM) th DRAM
than
chips
RDRAM

p. 4.18 Next
 Memory
dual inline memory module

Where does memory reside?

 Resides on small circuit
board called memory
module
 M
Memory slots
l t on
motherboard hold memory
memory chip memory slot
modules
 9 chips: parity check
 8 chips: no parity check

p. 4.18 Fig. 4-20 Next

 Memory

How much RAM does an application require?

 Software package
p g
typically indicates System Requirements
®
Windows XP Home Edition/Professional
RAM requirements • Intel Pentium processor at 233MHZ or higher
• AMD K6 (Athlon Duron Family processor at 233MHZ or higher
 F optimal
For ti l • 64 MB off RAM

performance, you
need
eed more
o e than
minimum specifications

p. 4.19 Fig. 4-21 Next

 Memory Types

What is cache? [ “cache” means storage]

 Helps speed computer processes by storing frequently used
instructions and data
 Also called memory cache
 L1 cache built into processor
 L2 cache slower but has larger capacity
 L2 advanced transfer cache is faster,
b ilt directly
built di tl on processor chip hi
 L3 cache is separate from processor
chip on motherboard (L3 is only
on comp
computers
ters that use
se L2 advanced
ad anced
transfer cache)

p. 4.20 Fig. 4-23 Next

 Memory Types

What is cache?
 Helps speed computer processes by storing frequently used
instructions and data
 Also called memory cache
 L1 cache built into processor
 L2 cache slower but has larger capacity
 L2 advanced transfer cache is faster,
b ilt directly
built di tl on processor chip hi
 L3 cache is separate from processor
chip on motherboard (L3 is only
on comp
computers
ters that use
se L2 advanced
ad anced
transfer cache)

p. 201 Fig. 4-20 Next

Most RAM must be recharged constantly

Volatile Memory loses contents when power is removed

 Memory: ROM (Read Only Memory)

What is read-only memory (ROM)?

M
Memory chips
hi that
th t store
t Nonvolatile
i memory,
memory, it
i is
i not
permanent data lost when computer’s
and instructions power is turned off
EEPROM
Three types: (electrically
erasable programmable
read
ead--only memory)
emory)— —
Firmware—
Firmware — Type of PROM
Manufactured with containing microcode
permanently written PROM
programmer
data, instructions, (programmable can erase
or information read
ead--only
emory)—
memory) y)—
Blank ROM
chip onto which
a programmer
can write permanently

p. 4.20 Next
The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)

 BIOS uses Flash Memory

 http://www.howstuffworks.com/bios.htm

 Most important function of the BIOS is to load the

operating system (e
(e.g.
g Windows )
 Common BIOS tasks:
 POST (Power On Self Test)
 Activate other BIOS chips on different circuit cards
 Provide low-level routines for the operating system to interface with
hardware
dw e dev
devices
ces likee thee keyboard,
eybo d, thee monitor,
o o , serial,
se , parallel
p e ports.
po s.
 Manage the hard disk drive (reads/writes 512 bytes)
 Expansion Slots and Adapter Cards
What is an adapter card?
 Enhances system
y unit or provides
p connections to
external devices called peripherals
 Also called an expansion card

p. 204 Fig. 4-24 Next

 Expansion Slots and Expansion Cards

What is an expansion slot?

 An opening,
p g, or socket,,
on the motherboard
that can hold an
adapter
d t card d
 With Plug and Play,
thee computer
co pu e
automatically
configures cards
andd other
h ddevices
i
as you install them

p. 4.23 Fig. 4-28 Next

 Expansion Slots and Expansion Cards

What are PC cards and flash memory cards?

 A PC card adds memory, y, sound,,
modem, and other capabilities to
notebook computers
 A flash
fl h memory card d allows
ll
users to transfer data from
mobile devices to desktop p
computers
 Hot plugging allows you to insert
and remove cards while computer
is running

p. 4.24 Fig. 4-29–4-30 Next

 Ports

What are ports and connectors?

 Port connects external devices to system unit
 Connector joins cable to peripheral
 Available in one of two genders: male and female

p. 4.25 Fig. 4-31–4.32 Next

 Ports

What are different types of connectors?

p. 4.26 Fig. 4-33 Next

 Serial Ports

What is a serial port?

 Transmits one bit of data at a
time
 Connects slow-speed devices,
such
h as mouse, k
keyboard,
b d
modem

p. 4.27 Fig. 4-34 Next

 Parallel Ports

What is a parallel port?

 Connects devices that can
transfer more than one bit at
a time, such as a printer

p. 4.27 Fig. 4-35 Next

 USB Ports

What are USB ports?

USB (universal serial bus) port can connect

up to 127 different peripherals together
with a single connector type

PCs typically have Third USB

two to four USB ports Si l USB port can
Single device connects
be used to attach to second USB
on front or back of device, and so on
the system unit multiple peripherals
in a daisy chain
Second USB
device connects
to first USB
First USB device
device connects
to USB port
p. 4.28 on computer Next
 Special Purpose Ports

What are special-purpose ports?

 Allow users to attach specialized peripherals (digital video
cameras, color printers, scanners, and disk drives) or
transmit data to wireless devices
 FireWire port
 MIDI (Musical
Instrument Digital
Interface) port
 SCSI (small
computer
p system
y
interface) port
 IrDA (Infrared Data
Association) port
 BluetoothTM port
p. 4.28 Fig. 4-37 Next
 Buses (Speeds: 400 MHz to 1066 MHz)

What is a bus?
 Channel that allows devices
i id computer to
inside
communicate with each other
 System bus connects processor
and RAM
 Bus width determines number
of bits transmitted at one time
 Word size is the number of
bits processor can interpret
and execute at a given time

p. 4.30 Fig. 4-38 Next

 Expansion Buses

What is an expansion bus?

 Allows processor to communicate with peripherals

p. 4.31 Fig. 4-39 Next

 Expansion Buses

What is an expansion bus?

 Allows processor to communicate with peripherals

PC Card FireWire USB AGP PCI

Bus Bus Bus Bus Bus

p. 212 Next
 Firewire (IEEE 1394)Ports and Connectors

What are FireWire ports?

 Connects multiple
p types
yp of devices that require
q
faster data transmission speeds
 Allows you to connect up to 63 devices together

p. 209 Next
 External & Internal Bays

What is a bay?
 Open
p area inside
system unit used to
install additional
equipment
 Drive bays typically
hold disk drives

p. 4.32 Fig. 4-40 Next