Computer Architecture Foundations

Identify the main components of a CPU (ALU, control unit, registers) and explain their roles in executing programs.

Describe how an instruction is fetched, decoded, and executed by the CPU.

Compare access times and sizes across the memory hierarchy (registers, cache, RAM, disk) to explain the importance of caching and locality of reference.

Differentiate between port-mapped I/O and memory-mapped I/O as mechanisms for hardware communication.

Explain what a hardware interrupt is and how the CPU responds to one, pausing its current work.

Trace how the hardware stack grows and shrinks during nested function calls using the stack pointer and base pointer registers.