Microprocessor Systems Architecture

📋 Course Outline

1. Computing and Microprocessor Foundations
2. Binary and Hexadecimal Representation
3. Von Neumann System Architecture
4. Buses and Address Decoding
5. Memory Organization and Operations
6. Memory Characteristics and Access
7. RAM Technologies
8. ROM Technologies
9. Memory Hierarchy and Selection

📖 1. Computing and Microprocessor Foundations

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Computer science : the science of processing information and combines information with automation
• Microprocessor : a complex integrated circuit that combines combinational and sequential logic and interprets and executes program instructions

★ Must-know

📌 Hardware is the concrete part of a computer system, whereas software is a set of program instructions stored in memory that defines the actions performed by the hardware.

• Intel created the first microprocessor, the 4-bit 4004, in 1971; it operated at 108 kHz and integrated approximately 2,300 transistors.

Further detail

• The transistor appeared in 1947, and Texas Instruments produced the first integrated circuit in 1958.

💡 Memory Hook