CH1 - part 3

The protective physical housing that contains an integrated-circuit chip and provides external connections.

IC package

Electrical connection points between an integrated circuit and external circuits.

Pins / leads

A specification showing the function assigned to each pin of an IC.

Pinout

A board that physically supports and electrically connects electronic components and ICs.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB)

The main circuit board containing and connecting many of a computer's major components.

Motherboard

The amount of circuitry or approximate number of transistors integrated onto an IC.

IC density

The progression of integrated-circuit integration levels from lower to higher density.

SSI → MSI → LSI → VLSI

A CPU implemented on a single integrated circuit.

Microprocessor

A compact computer built around a microprocessor, with memory and I/O components.

Microcomputer

A level of computer description emphasizing logic gates, switches/transistors, and their interconnections.

Gate / switching level

A level of computer description emphasizing registers, ALUs, buses, and data movement.

Register level

A level of description emphasizing large subsystems such as CPUs, memories, and I/O units.

Processor / system level

A large centralized general-purpose computer designed to serve many users or large workloads.

Mainframe

A microcomputer primarily intended for use by an individual.

Personal computer (PC)

A design approach in which interfaces and design information are available so others can build compatible hardware or software.

Open architecture

A shared communication path connecting major components such as the CPU, main memory, and I/O subsystem.

System bus

A computer design emphasizing a relatively small, streamlined instruction set for efficient execution.

RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer)

A computer design using a larger set of relatively complex instructions and addressing capabilities.

CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer)

An architecture in which only load and store instructions normally access main memory; most arithmetic operates on registers.

Load-store architecture

The number of processor clock cycles occurring per second.

Clock frequency

The average number of clock cycles required to execute an instruction.

CPI (Cycles Per Instruction)

A measure of how many millions of instructions a processor executes per second.

MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second)

A small, fast memory placed near or between the CPU and main memory to speed access to frequently needed information.

Cache memory

The layered storage organization typically ordered as registers, cache, main memory, then secondary memory.

Memory hierarchy

Overlaps stages of several instructions so multiple instructions are in progress at the same time.

Pipelining

Uses multiple execution units so more than one instruction can be issued or executed concurrently.

Superscalar processing

Processing multiple instructions from the same program concurrently.

Instruction-level parallelism

A small, low-cost general-purpose computer used to control a particular device or application.

Microcontroller

A computer or microcontroller built into the device it controls, often invisible to the end user.

Embedded system

A small, relatively closed network linking computers within a local organization or area.

LAN (Local-Area Network)

A computer or system that provides shared resources or services to other computers on a network.

Server

A device or computer that manages communication between one network and other networks.

Gateway

A worldwide collection of interconnected computer networks.

Internet

An early research computer network that became an important predecessor of the Internet.

ARPANET

Breaks a message into packets that can travel independently through a network and be reassembled at the destination.

Packet switching

Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol; key communication standards used for Internet communication.

TCP/IP

A system of linked multimedia information and resources accessed through the Internet.

World Wide Web (WWW)

Performing multiple operations or parts of a computation concurrently.

Parallel processing

Multiple relatively independent computers or processors work on subtasks and communicate through a network.

Distributed / loosely coupled system

A computer containing two or more CPUs that cooperate on computational tasks.

Multiprocessor

A multiprocessor system whose processors are closely connected and can exchange or access data relatively quickly.

Tightly coupled system

A multiprocessor in which all processors can access a common main memory.

Shared-memory multiprocessor

A multiprocessor in which each processor has its own local memory and communicates with others by sending messages.

Distributed-memory multiprocessor