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Von Neumann Architecture

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Von Neumann Architecture

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How a CPU works

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duncan george
duncan george
United Kingdom

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Von Neumann Architecture
 

Von Neumann ArchitectureOnline version

How a CPU works

by duncan george
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Von Neumann Architecture

The illustration above shows the essential features of the Von Neumann or stored-program architecture.

Memory

The computer will have memory that can hold both data and also the program processing that data. In modern computers this memory is RAM.

Control Unit

The control unit will manage the process of moving data and program into and out of memory and also deal with carrying out (executing) program instructions - one at a time. This includes the idea of a 'register' to hold intermediate values. In the illustration above, the 'accumulator' is one such register.

The 'one-at-a-time' phrase means that the von neumann architecture is a sequential processing machine.

Input - Output

This architecture allows for the idea that a person needs to interact with the machine. Whatever values that are passed to and forth are stored once again in some internal registers.

Arithmetic Logic Unit

This part of the architecture is solely involved with carrying out calculations upon the data. All the usual Add, Multiply, Divide and Subtract calculations will be available but also data comparisons such as 'Greater Than', 'Less Than', 'Equal To' will be available.

Bus

Notice the arrows between components? This implies that information should flow between various parts of the computer. In a modern computer built to the Von Neumann architecture, information passes back and forth along a 'bus'. There are buses to identify locations in memory - an 'address bus'

And there are buses to allow the flow of data and program instructions - a 'data bus'.

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Registers

A register is a discrete memory location within the CPU designed to hold temporary data and instructions

A modern CPU will hold a number of registers. 

Program Counter (PC)

This holds the address in memory of the next instruction.

For example if the program counter has the address 305 then the next instruction will be at location 305 in main memory (RAM). When a program is running, the program counter will often just be incrementing as it addresses one instruction after the other, e.g. 305, 306, 307. 

Current Instruction Register (CIR)

This holds the current instruction to be executed, having been fetched from memory.

Memory Address Register (MAR)

Remember that data and program instructions have to fetched from memory? The memory address register, or MAR, holds the location in memory (address) of the next piece of data or program to be fetched (or stored).

Memory Buffer Register or Memory Data Register

When the data or program instruction is fetched from memory, it is temporarily held in the 'Memory Buffer Register' or MBR for short sometimes also called the Memory Data Register or MDR

A 'buffer' is a commonly used computer term to describe memory designed to hold data that is on its way to somewhere else.
 
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