Chapter 1 - Processor components

No description yet. This curated deck is ready for daily study.

Total cards: 24•Content version: v4•Public deck•Updated: 8/1/2026

Card preview (24)

Front (Question)

What is the purpose of the CPU? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Processes instructions using the FDE cycle

Front (Question)

What is the purpose of the control unit? 4 Marks

Back (Answer)

» Controls the flow of bits inside the CPU between the registers » Decodes instructions » Controls the execution of instructions » Maintains synchronisaton

Front (Question)

What is a bus? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Set of parallel wires/lines connecting 2 or more components of a computer in which data can be sent around the computer

Front (Question)

What is an address bus? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» A bus used to access a particular main memory location

Front (Question)

What is a data bus? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Returns the data of the location to the CPU

Front (Question)

What is a control bus? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» A bus which carries control signals, and also the clock’s pulses

Front (Question)

What is a system bus? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» The three buses: control, signal and address

Front (Question)

What is a shared transmission medium?

Back (Answer)

» Each bus has one of these, and it means only the device can transmit along a bus at any one time

Front (Question)

What is bi-directional ? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Can travel both forwards and backwards

#10

Front (Question)

What buses travel in both directions? 2 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Data bus » Control bus

#11

Front (Question)

What is unidirectional? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Data flows in one direction only

#12

Front (Question)

Which bus travels in one direction only? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Address bus

#13

Front (Question)

Where does the address bus travel to?

Back (Answer)

» To memory or an I/O controller

#14

Front (Question)

What is an I/O controller? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» A series of micro ships which helps in the communication of data between the CPU and motherboard

#15

Front (Question)

What does I/O stand for?

Back (Answer)

» Input and output devices

#16

Front (Question)

What is the purposes of control lines in a control bus?

Back (Answer)

» To ensure that access to and use of that data and address buses by the different components of system does not lead to conflict

#17

Front (Question)

How can the components of the system buses lead to conflict?

Back (Answer)

» As data and address buses are shared by all components, control lines are needed to regulate the timing signals

#18

Front (Question)

What are some examples of control signals?

Back (Answer)

» Bus request » Bus grant » Memory Write/Read

#19

Front (Question)

How many lines usually does a data bus have?

Back (Answer)

» Usually 8,16,32,64 separate lines.

#20

Front (Question)

What is a word? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Fixed size group of digits that are divided up internally in memory, which has its own specific address

#21

Front (Question)

What is the purpose of the ALU? 2 Marks

Back (Answer)

» Performs arithmetic and logical operations on the data » Acts as a gateway to the processor for easy calculations

#22

Front (Question)

What are registers? 2 Mark

Back (Answer)

» A discrete small piece of memory used for storing data » Within the processor

#23

Front (Question)

What is the purpose of the accumulator? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» To store the results of the calculations from ALU

#24

Front (Question)

What is the purpose of program counter? 1 Mark

Back (Answer)

» Stores the address of the next instruction to be processed