Unit 1 - Components of a computer and their uses

Describe the function of the ALU and Control Unit

Describe the Fetch-Execute cycle and the role of the following registers:

• Program counter

• Accumulator

• Memory Address Register

• Memory data register

• Current instruction register

Describe the factors affecting the performance of the CPU: clock speed, number of cores, cache

Understand the use of pipelining in a processor to improve efficiency

Describe von Neumann, Harvard and contemporary processor architecture

Describe the differences between, and uses of, CISC and RISC processors

Describe GPUs and their uses

Describe multicore and parallel systems

Describe different input devices

Explain how different input devices can be applied as a solution to different problems

Describe how different output devices can be applied as a solution of different problems

Describe the characteristics and uses of RAM and ROM

Understand what is meant by virtual storage

Describe the uses of magnetic, flash and optical storage devices