Computer Architecture

What does computer architecture mean?

Computer architecture is a specification detailing how a set of software and hardware technology standards interact to form a computer system or platform. In short, computer architecture refers to how a computer system is designed and what technologies it is compatible with.

As with other contexts and meanings of the word architecture, computer architecture is likened to the art of determining the needs of the user/system/technology, and creating a logical design and standards based on those requirements.

History:

The first documented computer architecture was in the correspondence between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, describing the analytical engine. Two other early and important examples were:

•     John von Neumann's 1945 paper, First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, which described an organization of logical elements; and

•     Alan Turing's more detailed Proposed Electronic Calculator for the Automatic Computing Engine, also 1945 and which cited von Neumann's paper.

 

 
Categories of computer architecture:

There are three categories of computer architecture:

    1.System Design: This includes all hardware components in the system, including data processors aside from the CPU, such as the graphics processing unit and direct memory access. It also includes memory controllers, data paths and miscellaneous things like multiprocessing and virtualization

    2.Instruction Set Architecture (ISA): This is the embedded programming language of the central processing unit. It defines the CPU's functions and capabilities based on what programming it can perform or process. This includes the word size, processor register types, memory addressing modes, data formats and the instruction set that programmers use

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   3.Microarchitecture: Otherwise known as computer organization, this type of architecture defines the data paths, data processing and storage elements, as well as how they should be implemented in the ISA.

Design Goals:

                The exact form of a computer system depends on the constraints and goals. Computer architectures usually trade off standards, power versus performance, cost, memory capacity, latency (latency is the amount of time that it takes for information from one node to travel to the source) and throughput. Sometimes other considerations, such as features, size, weight, reliability, and expandability are also factors.

Future of Computer architecture:

Actually in my views,Computer architecture up till now we have seen many improvement and great functionality and in future it will be more improved because we are living in 21th century , in which computer done every task that we were unexpected in past.