History of different Buses in a PC

Introduction:

Inside computers, there are many internal components. In order for these components to

communicate with each other, they make use of wires that are known as a ‘bus’.

A bus is a common pathway through which information flows from one computer component to

another. This pathway is used for communication purpose and it is established between two or

more computer components. We are going to check different computer bus architectures that are

found in computers.

The bus contains multiple wires (signal lines) that contain addressing information that describes

the memory location of where the data is being sent or where it is being retrieved. Each wire in

the bus carries a single bit of information, which means the more wires a bus has the more

information it can address. For example, a computer with a 32-bit address bus can address 4 GB

of memory, and a computer with a 36-bit bus can address 64 GB of memory.

A bus is capable of being a parallel or serial bus and today all computers utilize two bus types,

an internal bus or local bus and an external bus, also called the expansion bus. An internal bus

enables communication between internal components such as a video card and memory. An

external bus is capable of communicating with external components such as a USB or SCSI

device.

A computer or device's bus speed is listed in MHz, e.g., 100 MHz FSB. The throughput of a bus

is measured in bits per second or megabytes per second. (Computer Buses)

Basic Personal Computer System

A computer system consists of hardware and software components.

Hardware is the physical equipment such as the case, storage drives, keyboards, monitors, cables,

speakers, and printers.

Software is the operating system and programs.

The operating system instructs the computer how to operate.

Programs or applications perform different functions.

Computer case

Provides protection and support for internal components

Should be durable, easy to service, and have enough room for expansion

Power supply

Converts AC power from the wall socket into DC

Must provide enough power for the installed components and future additions

Power Supplies

The power supply converts alternating-current (AC) power coming from a wall outlet into direct-

current (DC) power, which is a lower voltage.

DC power is required for all of the components inside the computer.

Cables, connectors, and components are designed to fit together snugly. Never force any

connector or component.

Four Basic Units of Electricity

Voltage (V) is a measure of the force required to push electrons through a circuit. Voltage is

measured in volts. A computer power supply usually produces several different voltages.

Current (I) is a measure of the amount of electrons going through a circuit. Current is measured

in amperes, or amps (A). Computer power supplies deliver different amperages for each output

voltage.

Power (P)is voltage multiplied by current. The measurement is called watts (W). Computer

power supplies are rated in watts.

Resistance (R)is the opposition to the flow of current in a circuit. Resistance is measured in

ohms. Lower resistance allows more current to flow through a circuit.

Motherboards

The main printed circuit board.

Contains the buses, or electrical pathways found in a computer. Buses allow data to travel among

the various components.

Also known as the system board, the backplane, or the main board.
Accommodates CPU, RAM, expansion slots, heat sink/fan assembly, BIOS chip, chip set,

sockets, internal and external connectors, various ports, and the embedded wires that

interconnect the motherboard components.

The form factor of motherboards pertains to the size and shape of the board.

It also describes the physical layout of the different components and devices on the motherboard.

Various form factors exist for motherboards.

AT –Advanced Technology

ATX –Advanced Technology Extended

Mini-ATX –Smaller footprint of ATX

Micro-ATX –Smaller footprint of ATX

LPX –Low-profile Extended

NLX –New Low-profile Extended

BTX –Balanced Technology Extended (Computer Bus)

Central Processing Unit(CPU)

Known as the brain of the computer. Also referred to as the processor.

Most important element of a computer system. Executes a program, which is a sequence of

stored instructions.

Two major CPU architectures related to instruction sets:

Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC)

Complex Instruction Set Computer(CISC)

To an operating system, a single CPU with hyper threading appears to be two CPUs.

The wider the processor data bus width, the more powerful the processor. Current processors

have a 32-bit or a 64-bit processor data bus.

Over clocking is a technique used to make a processor work at a faster speed than its original

specification.

MMX enabled microprocessors can handle many common multimedia operations that are

normally handled by a separate sound or video card.

The latest processor technology has resulted in CPU manufacturers finding ways to incorporate

more than one CPU core onto a single chip.

Functions of Buses in Computers

Summary of functions of buses in computers

1. Data sharing - All types of buses found in a computer transfer data between the computer

peripherals connected to it.

The buses transfer or send data either in the serial or parallel method of data transfer. This allows

for the exchange of 1, 2, 4 or even 8 bytes of data at a time. (A byte is a group of 8 bits). Buses

are classified depending on how many bits they can move at the same time, which means that we

have 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or even 64-bit buses.

2. Addressing - A bus has address lines, which match those of the processor. This allows data to

be sent to or from specific memory locations.

3. Power - A bus supplies power to various peripherals connected to it.

4. Timing - The bus provides a system clock signal to synchronize the peripherals attached to it

with the rest of the system.

The expansion bus facilitates easy connection of more or additional components and devices on a

computer such as a TV card or sound card.

Connections:

• All the units must be connected

• Different type of connection for different type of unit

— Memory
 — Input/Output

— CPU

Computer Modes:

Memory connection:

• Receives and sends data

 • Receives addresses (of locations)

• Receives control signals

— Read

— Write

— Timing

Input/ Output Connection:

• Similar to memory from computer’s viewpoint

• Output

— Receive data from computer

— Send data to peripheral

• Input

— Receive data from peripheral

— Send data to computer

• Receive control signals from computer

• Send control signals to peripherals

— e.g. spin disk

• Receive addresses from computer

— e.g. port number to identify peripheral

• Send interrupt signals (control)

• CPU Connection:

Reads instruction and data

• Writes out data (after processing)

• Sends control signals to other units

• Receives (& acts on) interrupts (System Bus Types, Functions, and Features)

Buses:

• There are a number of possible interconnection systems

• Single and multiple BUS structures are most common

• e.g. Control/Address/Data bus (PC)

• e.g. Unibus (DEC-PDP)

Functions of buses are:

Data Bus:

The data bus acts as a conduit for data from the keyboard, memory and other devices. It

passes information at speeds up to billions of characters per second.

It is a group of conducting wires which carries Data only. Data bus is bidirectional because

data flow in both directions, from microprocessor to memory or Input/ Output devices and

from memory or Input / Output devices to microprocessor.

Length of Data Bus of 8085 microprocessor is 8 Bit (That is, two Hexadecimal Digits),

ranging from 00 H to FF H. (H denotes Hexadecimal).

When it is write operation, the processor will put the data (to be written) on the data bus,

when it is read operation, the memory controller will get the data from specific memory

block and put it into the data bus.

The width of the data bus is directly related to the largest number that the bus can carry, such

as an 8 bit bus can represent 2 to the power of 8 unique values, this equates to the number 0

to 255.A 16 bit bus can carry 0 to 65535.

The central processor reads the data, performs calculations, and moves new data back to

memory, the hard drive and other locations. The control bus determines which direction the

data is moving.

• 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

Address Bus:

The computer must be able to access every character of memory rapidly, so every character

has its own address number. The central processor specifies which addresses it wants to read

or write and the address bus carries this information to a memory controller circuit, which

locates and fetches the information. Some locations, called random-access memory, hold

program instructions and temporary calculation results.

It is a group of conducting wires which carries address only.Address bus is unidirectional

because data flow in one direction, from microprocessor to memory or from microprocessor

to Input/output devices (That is, Out of Microprocessor).

Length of Address Bus of 8085 microprocessor is 16 Bit (That is, Four Hexadecimal Digits),

ranging from 0000 H to FFFF H, (H denotes Hexadecimal). The microprocessor 8085 can

transfer maximum 16 bit address which means it can address 65, 536 different memory

location.

The Length of the address bus determines the amount of memory a system can address.Such

as a system with a 32-bit address bus can address 2^32 memory locations.If each memory

location holds one byte, the addressable memory space is 4 GB.However, the actual amount

of memory that can be accessed is usually much less than this theoretical limit due to chipset

and motherboard limitations.

 Other locations point to the hard drive, mouse and keyboard. The control bus specifies which

of these two sets of addresses become active for a particular memory operation.

• 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

Control Bus:

The motherboard's control bus manages the activity in the system. The control bus, like the other

buses, is simply a set of connections among the parts in the computer. All parts "agree to

recognize" that if one connection carries a voltage and the next one does not, it means that the

central processor reads from memory. If the connections reverse roles, the processor writes to

memory.

It is a group of conducting wires, which is used to generate timing and control signals to control

all the associated peripherals, microprocessor uses control bus to process data, that is what to do

with selected memory location. Some control signals are:

• Memory read

• Memory write

• I/O read
 • I/O Write

• Opcode fetch

If one line of control bus may be the read/write line.If the wire is low (no electricity flowing)

then the memory is read, if the wire is high (electricity is flowing) then the memory is written.

Other connections deal with the "chunking" of data 8, 16, 32 or 64 bits at a time. Still others

determine if data is being shuttled to the central processor from memory or the keyboard. This

signaling system prevents data from going to the wrong place.

• Control and timing information

— Memory read/write signal

— Interrupt request

— Clock signals (System Buses)

Bus Interconnection Scheme:

What do buses look like?

 — Parallel lines on circuit boards

— Ribbon cables

— Strip connectors on mother boards

– e.g. PCI

— Sets of wires

Physical Architecture of Buses:

Single Bus problems:

• Lots of devices on one bus leads to:

— Propagation delays

– Long data paths mean that co-ordination of bus use can adversely affect

performance

– If aggregate data transfer approaches bus capacity

• Most systems use multiple buses to overcome these problems

Bus Types:

• Dedicated

— Separate data & address lines

• Multiplexed

— Shared lines

— Address valid or data valid control line

— Advantage - fewer lines

— Disadvantages

– More complex control

 – Ultimate performance

Bus Arbitration:

• More than one module controlling the bus

• e.g. CPU and DMA controller

• Only one module may control bus at one time

• Arbitration may be centralised or distributed

Centralized and Distributed Arbitration:

• Centralised

— Single hardware device controlling bus access

– Bus Controller

– Arbiter

— May be part of CPU or separate

• Distributed

— Each module may claim the bus

— Control logic on all modules

Timing:

• Co-ordination of events on bus

• Synchronous

— Events determined by clock signals

— Control Bus includes clock line

— A single 1-0 is a bus cycle

— All devices can read clock line

— Usually sync on leading edge

— Usually a single cycle for an event (Computer Buses)

PCI Bus:

• Peripheral Component Interconnection

• Intel released to public domain

• 32 or 64 bit

• 50 lines
PCI Bus Lines:

• Systems lines

— Including clock and reset

• Address & Data

— 32 time mux lines for address/data

— Interrupt & validate lines

• Interface Control

• Arbitration

— Not shared

— Direct connection to PCI bus arbiter

• Error lines

• Interrupt lines

— Not shared

• Cache support

• 64-bit Bus Extension

— Additional 32 lines
 — Time multiplexed

— 2 lines to enable devices to agree to use 64-bit transfer

• JTAG/Boundary Scan

— For testing procedures

PCI Commands:

• Transaction between initiator (master) and target

• Master claims bus

• Determine type of transaction

— e.g. I/O read/write

• Address phase

• One or more data phases (Computer Buses)

Bibliography
(n.d.). Retrieved 04 2020, from System Buses:
http://service.scs.carleton.ca/sivarama/org_book/org_book_web/slides/chap_1_versions/ch5_1.pdf

This web page tells about detail explanation of System Buses. Tells the function of each bus and why and
what is function of each bus. A bus is a common pathway through which information flows from one
computer component to another. This pathway is used for communication purpose and it is established
between two or more computer components.

Computer Bus. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 2020, from Learn Computer Science:

https://www.learncomputerscienceonline.com/computer-bus/

he writes how-to guides around Computer fundamental , computer software, Computer programming,
and web apps. He also tells about connecting various peripheral devices to the CPU. These devices
connect to the system bus via a ‘bridge’ implemented in the processors' chipset. Other names for the
I/O bus include “expansion bus", "external bus” or “host bus”.

Computer Buses. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 2020, from cut:

http://www.cut.ac.zw/espace/mchinyuku/1410878742.pdf

Writer tells how AT bus also provided a total of 24 address lines, which allowed 16MB of memory to be
addressed. The AT bus was backward compatible with its 8-bit predecessor and allowed 8-bit cards to be
used in 16-bit expansion slots. When it first appeared the 8-bit ISA bus ran at a speed of 4.77MHZ – the
same speed as the processor. Improvements done over the years eventually made the AT bus ran at a
clock speed of 8MHz.

Computer Buses. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 2020, from Turbo Future:

https://turbofuture.com/computers/buses

Writer says, Interestingly, almost all buses are obsolete. PCIe, for instance, is purely a point-to-point
system (by definition, a bus must be capable of having three or more agents on it.) Similarly, USB is not a
bus at all, but a switched tree network. SATA (point-to-point) replaced IDE/PATA (two disks, one host).

System Bus Types, Functions, and Features. (n.d.). Retrieved 04 2020, from Notes for Bus:
http://notes4info.blogspot.com/2019/07/system-bus-types-functions-and-features.html

Here also, writer tells functions of System buses. Bus is just a fancy term for a connection which helps
two modules/devices/processors/controllers to communicate with each other. A typical PC has a system
bus, which consists of control bus, data bus and address bus. It's simply a bundle of wires connected in
clever ways for specific purposes.