Memory Unit The IAS is the place in the CPU where programs and the data that is needed

by programs are held, ready to be fetched then decoded and executed by the CPU. The CPU will also use this place to store the results of any processing it does. It is made up of individual memory locations, each capable of storing a byte of data. The parts of the operating system, which the computer is using at the time, also need to be stored in memory.

Performance of Computer System The materials used in a processor will affect the reliability, speed and performance of that processor. Importantly, the speed of the slowest component might slow right down an otherwise fast computer system.

Processors perform differently because of their clock speed. Every computer has a clock which generates pulses that are used to control how the different components of a computer system work together. A 800 MHZ computer means that the system clock is generating approximately 800 million pulses every second. The faster the clock, the more fetch-decode-execute cycles the CPU can perform in a second, and the faster programs will run.

The size of the address and data buses will affect the performance of the computer. A bus is simply a highway used to move binary data around a computer. Big data and address buses mean that data can be moved quickly compared to smaller buses.

Types of Primary Memory There are a number of different types of memory in the processor: 1. Read Only Memory (ROM) ROM is memory that cannot be altered. This means that even switching the computer off will not effect the contents of the ROM. There is very little that needs to be stored in ROM so it tends to be very small. This type of memory holds a special program that starts running when the computer is turned on. It holds a part of a program called the BIOS. This program does 2 things It checks that the computer hardware is present and correctly working

It runs a routine that looks for another special program called the boostrap program. Its job is to locate the OS on the hard drive and then load it into RAM and run it. Starting up a computer from a power-off situation to where the OS has been loaded up known as booting up the computer.

The BIOS itself includes user defined parameters and hence is not stored in ROM entirely. In fact the BIOS tends to be stored in a special type of RAM which is refreshed using battery power when the system is switched off. You are advised not to use this as an example of storage in ROM.

A typical question will ask for an example of what is stored in ROM and RAM. The safest answers are the bootstrap being stored in ROM and user software and data being stored in RAM.

2. RAM (Random Access Memory) RAM stores the programs that are being used by the computer (including the operating system) and the data that is being used with those programs. When the computer is switched off all this data is lost. RAM is said to be volatile memory because it is so easily changed, whereas ROM is non-volatile because it cannot change. A computer with 128 MB of RAM has approximately 128 million memory locations in which to store applications and data. The more RAM a computer have, the more applications can be opened at the same time and the more data files can be opened as well. Why the operating system is not stored in the ROM as the bootstrap program?

Other types of memory Registers These are part of the design of the CPU. They are memory circuits and are very very fast as they are constantly accessed by the CPU. Examples of registers are the Accumulator, the status register and the Program Counter. Cache It is provided in computer systems to speed up processing and like all memory it is measured in bytes. Programs are made up of instructions. These are fetched from memory using the fetch-

decode-execute cycle. The data that instructions need is also fetched from memory and some data might need to be fetched over and over again.

For example, a constant that is held in memory and is used lots of time in lots of calculations. Fetching data from IAS takes time. Fetching the same data time after time is a waste of time. Processing can be speeded up by storing constantly needed data in some very fast-access memory. This will reduce the fetch time. This fast-access memory is called cache. It is much faster than RAM but slower than registers. It is also very expensive.

How to compare different types of memory Memory can be classified in a whole variety of ways: 1. Primary memory and secondary memory(more commonly referred to as secondary storage) One way to deal with memory is to split it up into two ways: primary memory and secondary memory. Primary memory is the memory that stores data and programs temporarily. Secondary storage devices are connected to the CPU as peripherals such as floppy disk or a hard disk which store data and programs permanently. Primary memory is also known as immediate access storage or IAS 2. READ devices and READ/WRITE memory devices.

Registers, cache, RAM, floppy disks, hard drives and CD-R/W are READ/WRITE devices. That means that data in these devices can be read but also new data can be written to them. ROM, DVDs and some CDROMS are READ ONLY. Data is burnt(written to once) onto these devices and cannot be changed. They are sometimes called WORM devices(Write Once Read Many times) 3. Volatile memory and non-volatile memory.

Another way to split memory types is to divide them between volatile and non-volatile memory. RAM is volatile. That means that when the power is turned off, its contents is lost. Motherboards have a small amount of battery-backed RAM which keeps the details of the BIOS password, date and time when the power is switched off.