ABSTRACT
The pipelined- and parallel-processing architectures utilize multiple processors and can be considered as enhancements of modern day uniprocessor (or single-processor) architectures. This chapter, in order to provide a baseline for the modern day uniprocessor architecture, presents a brief review of the von Neumann uniprocessor model. It lists the advances in architecture as enhancements to this model. The control unit consists of a program counter (PC) that contains the address of the instruction to be fetched and an instruction register (IR) into which the instructions are fetched from the memory for execution. The hardware enhancements to von Neumann model are traced briefly. The chapter also highlights the major performance attributes of each subsystem in the uniprocessor model. Details of two commercial architectures provided illustrate the extent of pipeline and parallel structures utilized in contemporary architectures.
