CARC103 Computer Architecture

Introduction

Due to emergence of advanced technology increases the use of a computer system drastically. Currently, everything is depending upon the computer because in this way difficult tasks can be performed very easily and quickly. Therefore, computer architecture is the programmer’s view of the computer which includes the study of its components, aspects, and area of operations. In this report, a detailed overview of the whole concepts of computer architecture has been illustrated which were covered in the materials (11 weeks notes) provided.

Background

In this report, a detailed content analysis of computer architecture has been given. Materials were provided for 11 weeks which includes the different areas of computer architecture that were covered in the lectures. The information of these 11 weeks has been analyzed is presented in this report in three different parts. The first part provides the theoretical decision, the second part provides the interpretation of the given content, and the last part provides the outcome. By analyzing the provided materials using these three steps helped me to present them clearly and precisely. Once the content analysis has been done, a conclusion will be provided that will conclude the entire statement.

Content Analysis

Week 1: Introduction to System Architecture

In the first week, the most important topics which have been covered are the aspects of system architecture that include automated computation, types of computing, capabilities, components, and storage types. Automated computation is the device that accepts the numeric inputs, and based on that performs the computational functions and the communication through the results. There are various types of automated computing such as biological, mechanical, electronic, optical, and quantum computing in which quantum computing is in demand. Quantum computing is generally the exploitation of quantum state properties in a collected way such as the entanglement and superposition which is used to perform computation (Gyongyosi and Imre 2019). Computer has several capabilities such as they are the automated computing devices, perform computations, and perform the logic function like branching and comparison. A computer is composed of various components such as the processors, CPU, storage, and input and output devices. The storage of a computer is of two types primary storage and secondary storage.

The most important information about this content is the detailed knowledge about the different areas and components of the computer. Computers are used and be seen everywhere where the data is involved because computation provides the fastest way to deal with the data in order to fetch useful information.

This week helped me to learn about the different types of automated computing and they are involved in different areas while performing various tasks. I have also learned about the components of the computer while we use it daily for various purposes.

Week 2: Data Representation

In the second week, the most important topics which have been covered in the concepts of data representation include data representation and processing, automated data processing, Boolean logic, CPU data types. Data representation and processing is the technique where the data is being manipulated to convert into such a form where the processor will able to understand it (Dychka and Sulema 2018). Whereas, the automated data processing is the circuitry process of an advanced computer composed of electrical switches and wiring where the switches are the two-state devices that are either in a closed state or in an open state. Boolean logic is the kind of mathematically based system for combining and manipulating false and true values, it uses the switches to represent the state of the system (Rajput, Chouhan, and Pattanaik 2019). There are five types of data that the CPU recognizes and processes such as integer, real, character, Boolean, and memory address.  

The most important information about this content is that it represents the logic behind the data representation and data processing. The data being processed by the processor only if it is converted into a binary form which is understandable by the processor. It also represents the Boolean logic which is used for designing the circuit diagram.

This week helped to learn about Boolean logic which I used in my academic. This week covers mostly the mathematical part of computer architecture, and how the circuits are designed by using what logic and format. Including this, I have also learned about different notations which are used for converting data.

Week 3: Processor Technology and Architecture

In the third week, the most important topics which have been covered are the aspects of CPU (Central Processing Unit) that includes its components and components, benchmark, pipelining, multiprocessing, and switches and gates.  CPU (Central Processing Unit) is defined as the brain of the computer system that executes the instruction of the program incorporating branching, computation, and comparison. CPU has several components such as arithmetic logic unit (ALU), registers, and control unit, these are responsible for performing functions (Bindal 2019). Benchmark is the process to measure the performance of the computer system or its components when executing a realistic and specific software task. Multiprocessing is defined as the term which states the dynamic assignment of the program to more than one computer which is working together or on the same program (Hunt 2019). Switches and gates are generally the blocks that are used to build the CPU and the circuit of the memory. There are five different types of gates NOT, AND, OR, XOR, and NAND gates.

The most important information about this content is that it represents the basic concept of the CPU and how the circuit of the memory gets designed. This week also covers the different types of gates that are used for designing the circuit diagram based on the requirement.

This week I learned about the different types of gates such as the NOT, AND, OR, XOR, and NAND gates which I can use during my assignment for designing the circuit diagram of a CPU. The content improved my skills and knowledge about the components of CPUs and how they work.

Week 4: Data Storage Technology

In the fourth week, the most important topics which have been covered in the concepts of data storage include the storage device components, characteristics, memory storage hierarchy, and RAM. Storage device is a kind of computer-based hardware that is utilized to store, extract, or port the data objects and files. There are three types of components of storage devices such as storage medium, device controller, and read/write (R/W) mechanism. It also has several characteristics such as speed, volatility, access method, portability, and cost and capacity (Wu et al. 2017). Memory storage has several hierarchies such as a computer system incorporates various types of devices for storage, every device has a unique characteristic’s combination, and every device is optimal. RAM (Random Access Memory) is generally a primary storage technology where data is stored as per the need of the processor. There are two types of RAMs such as static ram (SRAM) and dynamic ram (DRAM) (Bhatti et al. 2017).

The most important information about this content is that it covers the most important area of a computer about which the system will not start or will be of no use. Storage devices are the most essential component of a computer system because here all the data are stored to be used further.

This week I learned about the components of a storage device and how much it is essential for a computer system. Not only this the content also improved my understanding of the logic behind the RAM of how it works and its type.

Week 5: System Integration and Performance

In the fifth week, the most important topics which have been covered are the aspects of system integration and performance that include a system bus, subsets, bus master’s approach, and lossy and lossless compression. System bus is defined as the communication channel which is used to connects the primary storage, peripheral devices, and CPU like the network, video controllers, and secondary storage. Whereas, the bus is the shared optical or electrical channel that connects more than two devices. There are four subsets of a system bus such as address bus, data bus, control bus, and power bus (Stevens, Ranjan, and Raghunathan 2018). Bus Master has two types of approaches which are used to control the bus access such as master-slave bus and peer-to-peer bus. Lossy compression is the process that is followed by decompression in order to reduce the original data. Whereas, lossless compression is the process of compression then decompression where the original data does not get reduced (Mentzer, Gool and Tschannen 2020).  

The most important information about this content is that gives a detailed idea about the system integration and performance. This week also covers the concept of system buses and CPU interact with the peripheral devices including how the CPU coordinates with the I/O devices and secondary storage.

This week I learned about the concept of the system bus which makes me understand how the I/O devices are connected with the CPU and how they interact with each other in order to perform certain functions or operations which makes me have a clear insight of the system hardware components.

Week 6: Input/Output Technology

In the sixth week, the most important topics which have been covered are the concepts of font and color display and representation, image description languages, video controllers, displays, and printers. Fonts are the collection of several characters of identical appearance and style which are generally measured in points. Whereas, color is the visual perspective used to describe the visual appearance of something. It has been categorized into three types such as RCB, CMY, and CMYK color. Numeric Pixel content is comprising of the bitmap, monochrome display, grayscale display, and chromatic resolution or depth. IDL (Image Description Languages) is the process that addresses the bitmap drawbacks such as device dependence and large size and used to represent the image component in various ways (Grella et al. 2017). Video controllers are used to enabling communications among the monitor and the computer system, whereas, the display is used to present the screen of the computer system, and the printer is used to print any content such as text or images.

The most important information about this content is that it represents the concepts of basic text and display including various I/O devices which are connected with the computer system to perform various activities.

This week helped me to understand the peripherals of a computer system and in what ways are connected with each other. I have also learned about the actual logic behind what is text and color, and how it is used to establish communication between the monitor and computer system and user and computer system.

Week 7: Computer Networks

In the seventh week, the most important topics which have been covered are the entire concepts of computer networks that include network topologies, routing, media access control, network layers, and IP addresses. Network Topology is generally the organization of several nodes and channels of communications for transporting the message. There are mainly four types of network topologies are there such as mesh, star, bus, and ring (Choi et al. 2018). Routing is the method of choosing a path for traffic in between or across various networks which can be performed in various ways. Media Access Control is generally a layer that is used to control the hardware which is responsible for interaction with the wireless, wired, or optical transmission medium. In the network, there are various layers involved such as the application layer, presentation layer, session layer, transport layer, data link layer, and physical layer (Ma, Yan, and Chen 2018). In networking IP address is very important as it assigns a unique numerical label to the device which connects to the network. The number is generally 32 bits written in dotted-decimal number.

The most important information about this content is that it highlights all the essential components of the network which are generally used to establish a connection with the connected devices. Including this, this week also covers the types of network topologies that are considered based on the area and need of the network.

This week helped me to know about the concepts of computer networks because it is the most interesting area for me. The knowledge which I have gained from this week assist me to clear my doubts and understand the area of implementation.

Week 8: Operating Systems

In the eighth week, the most important topics which have been covered are the concept of an operating system that includes its definition, functions, layers, virtual memory management, and page swapping. Operating System is a system-based software that is used to manage the software, resources, hardware of the computer and gives common services for the programs of the computer. It has few functions such as coordinating access to shared resources, provide a utility program set to perform functions, and implementing authentication ad access control (Zikria et al. 2018). It also has various layers like kernel, service layer, and command layer. Virtual Memory Management is the allocation of memory and technique for managing that memory that is involved in the processes (Bhattacharjee and Lustig 2017). Page swapping is the process in which the memory gets swapped temporarily to the secondary storage and makes that swapped memory available for being used as a process.

The most important information about this content is that it covers most software parts of a computer system which is an operating system without which the system cannot perform anything. It is responsible for managing the software, resources, hardware of the computer.

This week helped me to have a detailed understanding of what an operating system is tough I have the knowledge of some of the operating system but this week’s content provides me a detailed knowledge of its entire area.

Week 9: Secondary Storage Management

In the ninth week, the most important topics which have been covered are file management, allocation units, storage allocation tables, access control, and file backup. File Management is the technique of administering the system that handles the digital data correctly. An effective FMS (File Management System) helps to improve the entire function of a workflow. Allocation Units are responsible for allocating a set of units to a certain file where it gets stored. Storage Allocation Table is responsible for tracking the allocation unit (which gets unassigned or assigned). Whereas, access control is the data security component that dictates who are permitted to use and access the information or the resources (Xiang et al. 2019). File Backup is very important because it prevents the data from being lost due to some illegal activities or system failure.

The most important information about this content is that it covers the file management system which is a very crucial part of any system because they are responsible for managing the entire data and information which are there in the computer system.

This week helped me to learn about the aspects of a file management system that make me understand the value of data and its privacy. From this content now I can be able to manage the files of my system more properly which will be beneficial for me.

Week 10: Virtualization and Cloud Computing Fundamentals

In the tenth week, the most important topics which have been covered are components of virtualization, hosted virtualization, virtual machine, and the concept of cloud computing. Virtualization is the process that is used to create an environment based on the software in order to emulate the computer’s BIOS and hardware. There are three components of virtualization such as virtual machine (VM), guest OS, and a host computer (Yi et al. 2018). A Virtual Machine is a kind of virtual environment that behaves like a computer itself within the environment of the computer’s operating system (Zhang et al. 2018). Hosted Virtualization which is also known as the Management Layer Approach is generally virtualization that the end-users utilize to host their own computer. Cloud Computing is basically a computing service such as the servers, databases, intelligence, software, networking, storage, and analytics which is delivered over the cloud to the end user’s computer. Cloud computing is divided into three types such as PaaS, SaaS, and IaaS (Varghese and Buyya 2018).

The most important information about this content is that it provides a detailed overview of the entire cloud computing concept including its types. Currently, cloud computing is the trending topic in every field because of its capability to provide cloud-based services to the device anywhere and anytime.

I learned about the entire concept of cloud computing from this week. Now I can e able to understand the importance of cloud-based services and how they function. Not only this week also include the use of a virtual machine is one of my favorite topics of mine. VM provides the ability to run any OS in order to have experience and to work on it temporarily.

Week 11: System Administration

In the eleventh week, the most important topics which have been covered are the concepts of system administration that includes its definition, strategic planning, and competitive advantage. System Administration is the field of work where an individual is responsible for managing more than one system that may be hardware, workstations, or software. Its primary goal is to guarantee the system is running effectively and efficiently. The strategic planning of a system administrator is setting a long-term objective and creating a plan in order to achieve those objectives (Zeng, Chen, and Xiao 2017). The competitive advantages are, it provides services that the competitors are not able to provide, provides high-quality services, and generates the services at low cost. There are certain factors that make their competitive advantage difficult to achieve such as a change in raid technology, and high cost for developers.

The most important information about this content is that its covers the entire aspects of the system administration which includes managing the system to protecting the system. For any computer system and admin, privilege is very essential so that no unauthorized entities can access the private file of the current administrator about their permission.

This last week I learned the core concept of the computer system which is system administration. I gained various knowledge while completing this week which not only helped to improve my understanding of the system administration but also helped to establish the parameters which are required to put on in order to prevent unauthorized access.  

Conclusion

Computer Architecture is one of the most important areas of study due to its detailed concepts about the components of the computer system. In this content analysis report, all the provided materials were analyzed in detail, and based on that the analysis has been done. So, I conclude that the above statement is true and can be used for future study, and the knowledge which I have gained after completing I very beneficial for me.

References

Bhattacharjee, A. and Lustig, D., 2017. Architectural and operating system support for virtual memory. Synthesis Lectures on Computer Architecture, 12(5), pp.1-175.

Bhatti, S., Sbiaa, R., Hirohata, A., Ohno, H., Fukami, S. and Piramanayagam, S.N., 2017. Spintronics based random access memory: a review. Materials Today, 20(9), pp.530-548.

Bindal, A., 2019. Central Processing Unit. In Fundamentals of Computer Architecture and Design (pp. 251-438). Springer, Cham.

Choi, S.C., Hussen, H.R., Park, J.H. and Kim, J., 2018, July. Geolocation-based routing protocol for flying ad hoc networks (fanets). In 2018 Tenth International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN) (pp. 50-52). IEEE.

Dychka, I.A. and Sulema, Y.S., 2018. Logical operations in algebraic system of aggregates for multimodal data representation and processing. ÐÐ°ÑƒÐºÐ¾Ð²Ñ– вісті КПІ, (6), pp.44-52.

Gella, S., Sennrich, R., Keller, F. and Lapata, M., 2017. Image pivoting for learning multilingual multimodal representations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.07601.

Gyongyosi, L. and Imre, S., 2019. A survey on quantum computing technology. Computer Science Review, 31, pp.51-71.

Hunt, J., 2019. Multiprocessing. In Advanced Guide to Python 3 Programming (pp. 363-376). Springer, Cham.

Ma, C., Yan, Z. and Chen, C.W., 2018. Scalable access control for privacy-aware media sharing. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 21(1), pp.173-183.

Mentzer, F., Gool, L.V. and Tschannen, M., 2020. Learning better lossless compression using lossy compression. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 6638-6647).

Rajput, A.K., Chouhan, S. and Pattanaik, M., 2019, December. Low power boolean logic circuits using reversible logic gates. In 2019 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communication and Control (ICAC3) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

Stevens, J.R., Ranjan, A. and Raghunathan, A., 2018, November. AxBA: An approximate bus architecture framework. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (pp. 1-8).

Varghese, B. and Buyya, R., 2018. Next generation cloud computing: New trends and research directions. Future Generation Computer Systems, 79, pp.849-861.

Wu, H., Wang, X.H., Gao, B., Deng, N., Lu, Z., Haukness, B., Bronner, G. and Qian, H., 2017. Resistive random access memory for future information processing system. Proceedings of the IEEE, 105(9), pp.1770-1789.

Xiang, W., Yuhang, W., Kaiwen, H., Xiaoli, S. and Li, Z., 2019, August. The Design of File Management System Based on Website and Qr. In 2019 International Conference on Smart Grid and Electrical Automation (ICSGEA) (pp. 157-160). IEEE.

Yi, B., Wang, X., Li, K. and Huang, M., 2018. A comprehensive survey of network function virtualization. Computer Networks, 133, pp.212-262.

Zeng, L., Chen, H. and Xiao, Y., 2017. Accountable administration in operating systems. International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 9(3), pp.157-179.

Zhang, F., Liu, G., Fu, X. and Yahyapour, R., 2018. A survey on virtual machine migration: Challenges, techniques, and open issues. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 20(2), pp.1206-1243.

Zikria, Y.B., Yu, H., Afzal, M.K., Rehmani, M.H. and Hahm, O., 2018. Internet of things (IoT): Operating system, applications and protocols design, and validation techniques.

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