Load Balancing Multiple CPUs in Symmetric Multiprocessing
On Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) systems it is important to keep the workload balanced among all processors. There are two approaches to accomplish this, push migration and pull migration. More ...
Intel's Core i7 Processors
Core i7 is a family of Intel quad core processors, that is, they have four processors on a single silicon chip. All four processor cores and all memory caches, including a 64K L1 cache, a 256K L2 cache, and a shared L3 cache are located on one chip. The memory is also located on the same chip. More ...
Digital Logic Semiconductor Families
logic family refers to the way the semiconductors are designed to create gates. The first highly popular logic family, available in 1964, was TTL (Transistor-Transistor Logic). More ...
Round-Robin CPU Scheduling Algorithm
CPU Scheduling deals with the problem of deciding which of the processes in the ready queue is to be alocated the CPU. There are many different CPU scheduling algorithms. In this article we describe round-robin CPU scheduling. More ...
Microcontrollers
A microcontroller is an IC that contains a microprocessor as well as RAM, ROM and general I/O ports. Engineers design microcontrollers into specific-purpose devices such as microwave ovens, cars, washing machines, refridgerators, and even space probes. More ...
Microprocessor Counter, Clock, Timer Circuits
All the circuitry in the microprocessor, in fact all the circuitry on the motherboard require a clock signal for operation. The clock signal is the heartbeat of the system. Without a clock signal, the microprocessor and the computer are dead. More ...
Fundamental Digital Logic Gates
All the advanced features of the most powerful computers, such as mulicore and parallel processing are done with digital logic. In this article I explain the fundamental concept of digital logic in simple and clear language so that anyone can understand it. More ...
Real-Time CPU Scheduling
In a real-time systems, is one whose operation depends on timing. A task must be serviced within a specific time interval. The tasks and their execution times must all be known. More ...
Using the Microcontroller Timers
Timing is an essential function for generating signals with precisely determined duration, or for counting external events. For this reason, a timer subsystem is present in all microcontroller implementations. More ...
Digital Logic Transfer Characteristics
In the real world, gates don't transfer logic levels instantaneously. The time it takes for electrons and holes to move through the semiconductor material (called propagation delay) in CMOS are less than 100 ps (pico seconds), but there are other delays caused by resistance, capacitance, and inductance. More ...
Operating System Memory Paging
Paging is a memory management scheme that permits a process's physical address space to be noncontiguous. More ...
Introduction to Computer System Main Memory Operation
The CPU can be shared by a set of processes. Using CPU scheduling, we can improve the utilization of the CPU and the speed of the computer's response. To realize this increase in performance, multiple processes must be kept in memory. More ...
