Information System Hardware and Software: CPU Operation Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive overview of CPU operation within information systems. It begins by explaining the central processing unit (CPU) and its role in controlling data processing based on program instructions. The report then delves into the CPU's internal components, including the control unit, responsible for directing system execution, and the arithmetic/logic unit (ALU), which performs arithmetic and logical operations. It details how the CPU fetches, decodes, and executes instructions, outlining the instruction time (I-time) and execute time (E-time) phases. The report also highlights the importance of the CPU's clock for synchronizing operations. Furthermore, it emphasizes the CPU's critical role in computer organization, its function in multitasking, and the need for a good clock speed. Finally, the report includes references to relevant research articles and publications.

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Information System Hardware
and Software
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HOW CPU WORKS
The Central processing unit (CPU) is the unit which controls how processing of data takes
place. The processing of the data depends on the program instructions. When the user runs a
program by either double clicking on the program icon or via terrain, the following takes place.
First, there is a transfer of the program from hard drive to the RAM. A program is normally a set
of instructions for CPU. Second, the CPU uses its circuit controller named the memory controller
to load the data of the program from the RAM (Calciu, Sen, Balakrishnan, & Aguilera, 2018).
Now that we have the data in the CPU, processing starts to take place. How CPU process the
data depends on the instructions in the program which can be done do arithmetic calculations
done in the arithmetic or logic unit of the CPU. All the instruction execution is controlled by the
CPU’s control unit. The following diagram shows the steps

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The various components and their respective functions are elaborated below
1.1 THE CONTROL UNIT
This part has circuitry that uses electrical wirings to give direction to the computer system to
execute the program instructions already residing in the computer memory. This part is not
actually involved with the real execution but instead just controls how the system will execute by
giving directives to the other CPU and system parts destined to perfume the execution. The
control unit has a direct connection with the memory unit and the ALU units (Chacos, 2018).

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1.2 THE ALU
This is referred to as the Arithmetic /Logic Unit which has the circuitry for the actual execution
of the program instructions and any logical operations.
Normally, this ALU unit has the capability of perfoming four different types ofarithmetic
operation, i.e addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. From its name, the unit is also
concerned with logical operations written in the program instructions. Logical operations are
normal operation that involves comparison of variables. The variables to be compared can be in
the form of numbers, letters, and special characters. The program instruction can be written such
that the result of the comparison can be used to execute some program code. This decision-
making capabilities of the CPU is critical for programs and is used almost in any serious
program. The following are some of the logical operators the CPU uses to make logical decisions
(Farooqui et al., 2018).
Equal to; In this operations, the CPU compares two variables to check if they have equal values.
Less than-In this operation, the CPU compares two variables and checks if one is less than the
other variable.
Greater than; operations involving the greater than operation involves those decision made by the
CPU to compare two variables and check if one is greater than the other variable.
The above operations use the following operands (=),(<),(>) for equal to, less than and greater
than respectively (Mah Ung, 2018)

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1.3 HOW THE CPU EXECUTES
The following steps summarises the actual steps the CPUundergoes to execute program
instructions
First, the CU fetch (get) the instruction of the program from the main memory.
The CU will decode the instruction i.e make a decision on what each instruction means and give
directives to the various data that is required by the instruction and get is , moved from the main
memory to the ALU. This two stages are normallyreferred to as instruction time aka I-time
The ALU then executes the arithmetic or sometimes make logical operation on the data. During
this time, the ALU is actually having the control to perform any actual operations based on the
instructions (Ryan, 2016).
The ALU then stores the output of the operation on some memory location or register. The steps
3 and 4 are the ones called execute time, E-time.
Finally, the control gives the directive to main memory to have the result release onto an output
device or some secondary storage.
Each CPU has a clock that outputs pulse normally at fixed rates. This is to ensure all the
operations are synchronized. The diagram below shows a summary of how the CPU works (Ung,
2018).

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In nutshell, the CPU is a critical component of the computer organization. It is like the central
nervous system like in the human body. The CPU is tasked with the execution of the different
processed and task that users may be multiprocessing and multitasking. A good CPU must,
therefore, have a better clock to execute more instruction per second (Wong, 2014)

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REFERENCES
Calciu, I., Sen, S., Balakrishnan, M., & Aguilera, M. K. (2018). How to implement any concurrent data
structure. Communications of the ACM, 61(12), 97–105. https://doi.org/10.1145/3282506
Chacos, B. (2018). How to protect your PC from the major Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws. PCWorld,
36(2), 115–119.
Farooqui, N., Roy, I., Chen, Y., Talwar, V., Barik, R., Lewis, B., … Schwan, K. (2018). Accelerating Data
Analytics on Integrated GPU Platforms via Runtime Specialization. International Journal of
Parallel Programming, 46(2), 336–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-016-0482-x
Mah Ung, G. (2018). How to upgrade your laptop’s RAM. PCWorld, 36(7), 84–89.
Ryan, T. (2016). How CPUs work: a closer look at exterior processor design. PC World, 168.
Ung, G. M. (2018). How Memory Bandwidth Is Killing Amd’s 32-Core Threadripper Performance.
PCWorld, 36(10), 71–81.
Wong, B. (2014). Smart programming and peripherals reduce power requirements: various techniques
can minimize the power your microcontroller needs, extending battery life or reducing how hard
your energy harvesting systems have to work. Electronic Design, (7), 39.