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COMPUTER BUSES

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36 views3 pages

COMPUTER BUSES

Uploaded by

dhana lalitha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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System Bus Types and Functions

The CPU moves data around the computer on pathways that interconnect it to all the other
components on the motherboard. These pathways are called 'buses'.

The internal bus carries data within the motherboard.

External buses carry data to peripherals and other devices attached to the motherboard.

The lines or pins of a bus are of three types:

Address - the components pass memory addresses to one another over the address bus.

Control - used to send out signals to coordinate and manage the activities of the motherboard
components.

Data - transferred between peripherals, memory and the CPU. Obviously, the data bus can be a
very busy pathway.

Bus Architectures
As well as the processor bus (also known as the Front-Side Bus or FSB), these are the other buses
you may encounter:

ISA - the original PC expansion slot for 8-bit cards.

EISA - introduced when the 286 processor was available as it could access 16 bits.

PCI - a 64-bit bus, though it is usually implemented as a 32-bit bus. It can run at clock speeds of
33 or 66MHz.

AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port based on the PCI slot but designed for graphical throughput.

PCI Express - double the rate of PCI and uses two serial rather than one parallel data bus.

Purpose and Contents of CMOS Memory


A great deal of important configuration information is stored in a special type of non-volatile
memory, called Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor, or CMOS (pronounced 'sea-moss'),
which requires little power to hold on to its contents. CMOS runs on about a millionth of an amp
of electrical current. This efficiency allows it to store configuration data for a long time (maybe
years), powered only from either low-voltage dry cell or lithium batteries. On newer PCs, the
CMOS battery is located on the motherboard. On older systems, like the Amstrad 1512, a pair of
AA batteries mounted on the top of the system powered the CMOS.

To access the CMOS on most computers, press the delete (DEL) key as the computer is booting.
The content of each screen will vary depending on the motherboard but the same items should
be available to be configured. The following photos are screen captures of an ASUS motherboard
for an Athlon 64.

What is Computer Bus: The electrically conducting path along which data is transmitted inside
any digital electronic device. A Computer bus consists of a set of parallel conductors, which
may be conventional wires, copper tracks on a PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD, or microscopic
aluminum trails on the surface of a silicon chip. Each wire carries just one bit, so the number of
wires determines the largest data WORD the bus can transmit: a bus with eight wires can carry
only 8-bit data words, and hence defines the device as an 8-bit device.

A computer bus normally has a single word memory circuit called a LATCH attached
to either end, which briefly stores the word being transmitted and ensures that each bit
has settled to its intended state before its value is transmitted.
The Computer bus helps the various parts of the PC communicate. If there was no bus,
you would have an unwieldy number of wires connecting every part to every other part.
It would be like having separate wiring for every light bulb and socket in your house.

Types of Computer Bus


There are a variety of buses found inside the computer.
Data Bus: The data bus allows data to travel back and forth between
the microprocessor (CPU) and memory (RAM).
Address Bus: The address bus carries information about the location of data in
memory.
Control Bus : The control bus carries the control signals that make sure everything is
flowing smoothly from place to place.
Expansion Bus: If your computer has expansion slots, there's an expansion
bus. Messages and information pass between your computer and the add-in
boards you plug in over the expansion bus.
Although this is a bit confusing, these different buses are sometimes together called
simply "the bus." A user can think of the computer's "bus" as one unit made up of three
parts: data, address, and control, even though the three electrical pathways do not run
along each other (and therefore don't really form a single "unit") within the computer.
There are different sizes, or widths of data buses found in computers today. A data bus'
width is measured by the number of bits that can travel on it at once. The speed at
which its bus can transmit words, that is, its bus BANDWIDTH, crucially determines the
speed of any digital device. One way to make a bus faster is to increase its width;
for example a 16-bit bus can transmit two 8-bit words at once, 'side-by-side', and so
carries 8-bit data twice as fast as an 8-bit bus can. A computer's CPU will typically
contain several buses, often of differing widths, that connect its various subunits. It is
common for modern CPUs to use on-chip buses that are wider than the bus they use to
communicate with external devices such as memory, and the speed difference between
on- and off-chip operations must then be bridged by keeping a reservoir of temporary
data in a CACHE. For example many of the Pentium class of processors use 256 bits
for their fastest on-chip buses, but only 64 bits for external links.
An 8-bit bus carries data along 8 parallel lines. A 16-bit bus, also called ISA (Industry
Standard Architecture), carries data along 16 lines. A 32-bit bus, classified
as EISA (Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture) or MCA (Micro Channel
Architecture), can carry data along 32 lines.
The speed at which buses conduct signals is measured in megahertz (Mhz). Typical
PCs today run at speeds between 20 and 65Mhz. Also see CPU, Expansion Card,
Memory, Motherboard, RAM, ROM, and System Unit.

How Does Computer Bus Work?


A bus transfers electrical signals from one place to another. An actual bus appears as
an endless amount of etched copper circuits on the motherboard's surface. The bus is
connected to the CPU through the Bus Interface Unit.
Data travels between the CPU and memory along the data bus. The location (address)
of that data is carried along the address bus. A clock signal which keeps everything in
synch travels along the control bus.
The clock acts like a traffic light for all the PC's components; the "green light" goes on
with each clock tick. A PC's clock can "tick" anywhere from 20 to 65 million times per
second, which makes it seem like a computer is really fast. But since each task (such as
saving a file) is made up of several programmed instructions, and each of those
instructions takes several clock cycles to carry out, a person sometimes has to sit and
wait for the computer to catch up.

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