Difference between computer organization and architecture

Computer Architecture Computer Organization

Computer architecture is concerned with the way
Computer organization is concerned with the structure
hardware components are connected together to form
and behavior of a computer system as seen by the user.
a computer system.
It acts as the interface between hardware and It deals with the components of a connection in a
software. system.
Computer architecture helps us to understand the Computer organization tells us how exactly all the units
functionalities of a system. in the system are arranged and interconnected.
A programmer can view architecture in terms of Whereas organization expresses the realization of
instructions, addressing modes and registers. architecture.
While designing a computer system architecture is
An organization is done on the basis of architecture.
considered first.
Computer architecture deals with high-level design Computer organization deals with low-level design
issues. issues.

Architecture involves logical components. Organization involves physical components.

The key characteristics of memory devices or memory system are as follows:

• Location
• Capacity
• Unit of transfer
• Access method
• Performance
• Physical type
• Physical characteristics
• Organization
1. Location:
• It deals with the location of the memory device in the computer system. There are
three possible locations:
1. CPU : This is often in the form of CPU registers and small amount of cache
2. Internal or main
3. External or secondary

2. Capacity:
• The capacity of any memory device is expressed in terms of: i)word size ii)number
of words
1. Word size: Words are expressed in bytes (8 bits). A word can however mean any
number of bytes. Commonly used word sizes are 1 byte (8 bits), 2bytes (16 bits) and
4 bytes (32 bits).
2. Number of words: This specifies the number of words available in the particular
memory device. For example, if a memory device is given as 4K x 16.This means the
device has a word size of 16 bits and a total of 4096(4K) words in memory.
3. Unit of Transfer:
• It is the maximum number of bits that can be read or written into the memory at
a time. In case of main memory, it is mostly equal to word size. In case of external
memory, unit of transfer is not limited to the word size; it is often larger and is
referred to as blocks.

4. Access Methods:
• It is a fundamental characteristic of memory devices. It is the sequence or order
in which memory can be accessed. There are three types of access methods:

1. Random Access: Main memories are random access memories, in which each
memory location has a unique address. Using this unique address any memory
location can be reached in the same amount of time in any order.

2. Sequential Access: This methods allows memory access in a sequence or in

order.

3. Direct Access: In this mode, information is stored in tracks, with each track
having a separate read/write head.
5. Performance: The performance of the memory system is determined using three
parameters :

1. Access time
2. Memory cycle time
3. Transfer rate

6. Physical type: Memory devices can be either semiconductor memory (like RAM) or
magnetic surface memory (like hard disks).

7.Physical Characteristics:
• Volatile/Non-Volatile: If a memory device continues to hold data even if power is turned
off, the memory device is non-volatile. Otherwise it is volatile.

8. Organization:
• Erasable/Non-erasable: The memories in which data once programmed cannot be
erased are called Non-erasable memories. Memory devices in which data in the memory
can be erased is called erasable memory.
Most common Replacement Algorithms for Cache Memory

1.FIFO
2.Least recently used
3.Least frequently used
4.Random
Functional Blocks of an I/O Module
• Examples of RISC architecture : AMD 29k, Intel i860, Motorola 88000, PA-
RISC, Power, SPARC.

• Examples of CISC instruction set architecture : VAX, Motorola 68k, desktop

PCs on Intel’s x86 architecture.

• Operand forwarding (or data forwarding) is an optimization in pipelined

CPUs to limit performance deficits which occur due to pipeline stalls. A data
hazard can lead to a pipeline stall when the current operation has to wait
for the results.

• Branch folding is a technique where, on the prediction of most branches,

the branch instruction is completely removed from the instruction stream
presented to the execution pipeline. Branch folding can significantly
improve the performance of branches, taking the CPI for branches
significantly below 1.
• Delayed branch is a conditional branch instruction found in some RISC
architectures that include pipelining. The effect is to execute one or more
instructions following the conditional branch before the branch is taken.
This avoids stalling the pipeline while the branch condition is evaluated,
thus keeping the pipeline full and minimizing the effect of conditional
branches on processor performance.
• A Task pipeline is a set of steps that define a workflow for making a thing.
Tasks are used to track each unit of work that needs to be done as part of
a workflow.

• ISR : Stands for "Interrupt Service Routine." An ISR (also called an interrupt
handler) is a software process invoked by an interrupt request from a
hardware device. It handles the request and sends it to the CPU,
interrupting the active process. When the ISR is complete, the process is
resumed.

• A context switch is a procedure that a computer's CPU follows to change

from one task to another while ensuring that the tasks do not conflict.
Effective context switching is critical if a computer is to provide user-
friendly multitasking.
• Cache hit is when an application needs data and finds that data in the cache so it
never has to take the slower route and read the disk.

• Cache miss is when an application needs data and doesn’t find it in the cache, so
then it has to go and find the data on disk.

• Write back cache is a caching method in which modifications to data in the cache
aren't copied to the cache source until absolutely necessary.

• Write through cache is a caching technique in which data is simultaneously

copied to higher level caches, backing storage or memory.

• Locality of reference, also known as the principle of locality, is the tendency of a

processor to access the same set of memory locations repeatedly over a short
period of time. There are two basic types of reference locality – temporal and
spatial locality.
• Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) : A translation lookaside buffer is a
memory cache that stores recent translations of virtual memory to physical
addresses for faster retrieval.