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Von Neumann Architecture Essay

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Von Neumann architecture is a type of computer architecture model that acts as a store-program digital computer which uses a processing unit and a separate storage system that holds instruction and data. The processing unit is a combination of the control unit which has program counter and an instruction register and processor registers with an Arithmetic logic Unit (ALU). The memory unit is a block of shared storage registers that stores both data and instructions (Petterson & Lennessy, 2014). The memory block has a data bus and an address bus for communication with the processor. A Von Neumann system is characterized by a common bus that does both instruction fetching and operations of data. This means handling of data and instructions has to be done in sequential order which is known as Von Neumann Bottleneck, since the bus cannot operate in a full duplex manner. Von Neumann is one of the earliest computer architecture designs. But due to its limiting bandwidth operation and underutilization of the processor meant it had to be modified to cater for this. Most modern computer architectures borrow heavily from the Von Neumann architecture which had been considered to be incredibly successful at its time when processor demand was not highly required. In modern computer CPU chips you will find a control unit and the ALU along one local memory, and a main memory in the form of a RAM stick which is located on the mother board (Clements, 2006). The Van Neumann architecture was

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