Buses in a computer

1.  A computer processes and stores data as a series of electronic bits. These bits transfer internally within the circuitry of the computer along the electrical channels. Each channel, called a bus, allows the both inside and attached system unit to communicate with each other.

2.  Buses are used to transfer bits of input devices to memory, from memory to processor, from processor to memory and from memory to output. Buses consist of two parts – Data bus and address bus. Data bus- to transfer actual data Address bus- to transfer information about where the data should reside in the memory.

3.  The size of the bus, known as bus width determines the number of width the computer can transmit at one time. The larger the number of bits handled by the bus, the faster the computers transfers data. The wider the bus, the fewer the number of transfer steps required and the faster the transfer of data.

4.  In conjunction with the bus width, many computer professionals refer to the computers word size. Word size is the number of bits a compueter can interprate and execute at a given time. Computers with larger word size ca process more data in the same amount of time than computers with a smaller word size.

5.  Every bus also have got clock speed. Just like the processor, manufacturers state the clock speed for each busses is in hertz. Todays processors have got 1600MHz. The higher the bus clock speed, the faster the transmission of data, which results in programme running faster

6.  A computer has got 3 main types of busses : A system bus, a back side bus and an expansion bus. A system bus, also known as the Front side bus (FSB) is part of the motherboard and connects the processor to the cache. An expansion bus allows the processor to communicate with pheripherals A backside bus (BSB) connects the processor to the cache.

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