Computer architecture: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:58, 26 June 2025

Latest revision as of 05:56, 20 August 2025

(9 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown)

Line 2:

{{Lead too short|date=November 2023}}

[[File:Computer architecture block diagram.png|alt=|thumb|upright=1.35|Block diagram of a basic computer with uniprocessor CPU. Black lines indicate the flow of control signals, whereas red lines indicate the flow of processor instructions and data. Arrows indicate the direction of flow.]]

In [[computer science]] and [[computer engineering]], a '''computer architecture''' is a description of the structure of a [[computer]] system made from component parts.<ref>{{cite web|last=Dragoni|first=Nicole|title=Introduction to peer to peer computing|url=http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/courses/02220/2017/L6/P2P.pdf|website=DTU Compute – Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science|___location=Lyngby, Denmark|date=n.d.}}</ref> It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Clements|first1=Alan|title=Principles of Computer Hardware|page=1|edition=Fourth|quote=Architecture describes the internal organization of a computer in an abstract way; that is, it defines the capabilities of the computer and its programming model. You can have two computers that have been constructed in different ways with different technologies but with the same architecture.}}</ref> At a more detailed level, the description may include the [[instruction set architecture]] design, [[microarchitecture]] design, [[logic design]], and [[implementation]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hennessy|first1=John|last2=Patterson|first2=David|title=Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach|page=11|edition=Fifth|quote=This task has many aspects, including instruction set design, functional organization, logic design, and implementation.}}</ref>

== History ==

The first documented computer architecture was in the correspondence between [[Charles Babbage]] and [[Ada Lovelace]], describing the [[analytical engine]]. While building the computer [[Z1 (computer)|Z1]] in 1936, [[Konrad Zuse]] described in two patent applications for his future projects that machine instructions could be stored in the same storage used for data, i.e., the [[Stored-program computer|stored-program]] concept.<ref>{{citation |title=Electronic Digital Computers |journal=Nature |date=25 September 1948 |volume=162 |page=487 |doi=10.1038/162487a0 |last1=Williams |first1=F. C. |last2=Kilburn |first2=T. |issue=4117 |bibcode=1948Natur.162..487W |s2cid=4110351 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>Susanne Faber, "Konrad Zuses Bemuehungen um die Patentanmeldung der Z3", 2000</ref> Two other early and important examples are:

* [[John von Neumann]]'s 1945 paper, [[First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC]], which described an organization of logical elements;<ref>{{Cite book|title=First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC|last=Neumann|first=John|year=1945|pages=9}}</ref> and

*[[Alan M. Turing|Alan Turing]]'s more detailed ''Proposed Electronic Calculator'' for the [[Automatic Computing Engine]], also 1945 and which cited [[John von Neumann]]'s paper.<ref>Reproduced in B. J. Copeland (Ed.), "Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine", Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 369-454369–454.</ref>

The term "architecture" in computer literature can be traced to the work of Lyle R. Johnson and [[Fred Brooks|Frederick P. Brooks, Jr.]], members of the Machine Organization department in IBM's main research center in 1959. Johnson had the opportunity to write a proprietary research communication about the [[IBM 7030 Stretch|Stretch]], an IBM-developed [[supercomputer]] for [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] (at the time known as Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory). To describe the level of detail for discussing the luxuriously embellished computer, he noted that his description of formats, instruction types, hardware parameters, and speed enhancements were at the level of "system architecture", a term that seemed more useful than "machine organization".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/05-10/102634114.pdf |last1= Johnson |first1=Lyle| title= A Description of Stretch|page=1|year=1960|access-date=7 October 2017}}</ref>