Computer System Overview

Chapter 1
 Operating System
• Exploits the hardware resources of one
or more processors
• Provides a set of services to system users
• Manages secondary memory and I/O
devices
 Basic Elements
• Processor
• Main Memory
– referred to as real memory or primary memory
– volatile
• I/O modules
– secondary memory devices
– communications equipment
– terminals
• System bus
– communication among processors, memory, and
I/O modules
Top-Level Components
 Processor Registers
• User-visible registers
– Enable programmer to minimize main-
memory references by optimizing register
use
• Control and status registers
– Used by processor to control operating of
the processor
– Used by operating-system routines to
control the execution of programs
 User-Visible Registers
• May be referenced by machine language
• Available to all programs - application
programs and system programs
• Types of registers
– Data
– Address
• Index
• Segment pointer
• Stack pointer
 User-Visible Registers
• Address Registers
– Index
• involves adding an index to a base value to get
an address
– Segment pointer
• when memory is divided into segments,
memory is referenced by a segment and an
offset
– Stack pointer
• points to top of stack
 Control and Status Registers
• Program Counter (PC)
– Contains the address of an instruction to be fetched
• Instruction Register (IR)
– Contains the instruction most recently fetched
• Program Status Word (PSW)
– condition codes
– Interrupt enable/disable
– Supervisor/user mode
 Control and Status Registers
• Condition Codes or Flags
– Bits set by the processor hardware as a
result of operations
– Can be accessed by a program but not
altered
– Examples
• positive result
• negative result
• zero
• Overflow
Instruction Cycle
Instruction Fetch and Execute
• The processor fetches the instruction
from memory
• Program counter (PC) holds address of
the instruction to be fetched next
• Program counter is incremented after
each fetch
 Instruction Register
• Fetched instruction is placed in the instruction
register
• Types of instructions
– Processor-memory
• transfer data between processor and memory
– Processor-I/O
• data transferred to or from a peripheral device
– Data processing
• arithmetic or logic operation on data
– Control
• alter sequence of execution
Example of Program
Execution
 Direct Memory Access
(DMA)
• I/O exchanges occur directly with
memory
• Processor grants I/O module authority to
read from or write to memory
• Relieves the processor responsibility for
the exchange
• Processor is free to do other things
 Interrupts
• An interruption of the normal sequence of
execution
• Improves processing efficiency
• Allows the processor to execute other
instructions while an I/O operation is in
progress
• A suspension of a process caused by an event
external to that process and performed in such
a way that the process can be resumed
 Classes of Interrupts
• Program
– arithmetic overflow
– division by zero
– execute illegal instruction
– reference outside user’s memory space
• Timer
• I/O
• Hardware failure
 Interrupt Handler
• A program that determines nature of the
interrupt and performs whatever actions
are needed
• Control is transferred to this program
• Generally part of the operating system
Interrupt Cycle
 Interrupt Cycle
• Processor checks for interrupts
• If no interrupts fetch the next instruction
for the current program
• If an interrupt is pending, suspend
execution of the current program, and
execute the interrupt handler
 Multiple Interrupts
• Disable interrupts
while an interrupt is
being processed
– Processor ignores
any new interrupt
request signals
 Multiple Interrupts
Sequential Order
• Disable interrupts so processor can
complete task
• Interrupts remain pending until the
processor enables interrupts
• After interrupt handler routine
completes, the processor checks for
additional interrupts
 Multiple Interrupts
Priorities
• Higher priority interrupts cause lower-
priority interrupts to wait
• Causes a lower-priority interrupt handler
to be interrupted
• Example when input arrives from
communication line, it needs to be
absorbed quickly to make room for more
input
 Multiprogramming
• Processor has more than one program to
execute
• The sequence the programs are executed
depend on their relative priority and
whether they are waiting for I/O
• After an interrupt handler completes,
control may not return to the program
that was executing at the time of the
interrupt
Memory Hierarchy
 Going Down the Hierarchy
• Decreasing cost per bit
• Increasing capacity
• Increasing access time
• Decreasing frequency of access of the
memory by the processor
– locality of reference
 Disk Cache
• A portion of main memory used as a
buffer to temporarily to hold data for the
disk
• Disk writes are clustered
• Some data written out may be referenced
again. The data are retrieved rapidly
from the software cache instead of
slowly from disk
 Cache Memory
• Invisible to operating system
• Increase the speed of memory
• Processor speed is faster than memory
speed
Cache Memory
 Cache Memory
• Contains a portion of main memory
• Processor first checks cache
• If not found in cache, the block of
memory containing the needed
information is moved to the cache
Cache/Main Memory System
 Cache Design
• Cache size
– small caches have a significant impact on
performance
• Block size
– the unit of data exchanged between cache and
main memory
– hit means the information was found in the
cache
– larger block size more hits until probability of
using newly fetched data becomes less than the
probability of reusing data that has been moved
out of cache
 Cache Design
• Mapping function
– determines which cache location the block
will occupy
• Replacement algorithm
– determines which block to replace
– Least-Recently-Used (LRU) algorithm
 Cache Design
• Write policy
– When the memory write operation takes
place
– Can occur every time block is updated
– Can occur only when block is replaced
• Minimizes memory operations
• Leaves memory in an obsolete state
 Programmed I/O
• I/O module performs the
action, not the processor
• Sets appropriate bits in the I/O
status register
• No interrupts occur
• Processor checks status until
operation is complete
 Interrupt-Driven I/O
• Processor is interrupted when
I/O module ready to exchange
data
• Processor is free to do other
work
• No needless waiting
• Consumes a lot of processor
time because every word read or
written passes through the
processor
 Direct Memory Access
• Transfers a block of data
directly to or from
memory
• An interrupt is sent when
the task is complete
• The processor is only
involved at the beginning
and end of the transfer