Direct Memory Access (DMA)
In early computers, all data transfers required the processor to read and write single words from memory until the entire transfer is complete. With DMA, the DMA controller takes control of the system buses to move data between the device and main memory. More ...
Arduino Microcontroller Development Platform
The benefit of the open source Arduino Microcontroller Development Platform is that the software is free and the hardware is cheap. This makes it one of the cheapest platforms on which to develop prototypes. More ...
AMD Sempron Processor
The Sempron replaced the Duron as AMD's budget processor. The socket A Sempron is basically an Athlon XP with half the cache. The socket 754 Sempron is a cut down version of the Athlon 64 processor with half the cache. More ...
Processor Interrupts
An interrupt is a signal to the processor indicating an event has occurred that needs immediate attention. When an interrupt occurs, the processors normal path of execution is interrupted in order to run a routine to service the interrupt requester. More ...
Capacitors in DC Circuits
A capacitor is a component that can be used to store an electrical charge. A capacitor can be used to create a timer. This time delay can be used to smooth a changing current flow in a circuit, or it can be used to absorb spikes and prevent false triggering of other components. 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 ...
Integrated Circuit Design Flow
The process of integrated circuit design can be divided into stages: system design, logic design, circuit design, layout design, fabrication and testing. More ...
Introduction to the Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a tiny bare-bones computer motherboard. You can easily make it into a Linux PC by connecting your own keyboard, mouse, and display. More ...
CPU Cache Basics
After the processor accesses a location in memory, there's a high probability that the next location in memory that it will access is in the same area of memory. So to make the computer run faster, a a smaller, faster memory called a cache is placed between main memory and the processor. More ...
The AMD Athlon 64 Processor
AMD's Athlon 64 processor, released in September 2003, was their first 64-bit processor targeted for the workstation market to compete with Intel's Pentium 4. AMD's first 64-bit processor was the Opteron, released earlier in April that same year, targeted for the server market to compete with Intel's Xeon processor. More ...
Analog to Digital Convertion with a Microcontroller
Analog-to-digital conversion (or A/D conversion), is an electronic process that converts a continuously variable signal into a digital signal (expressed as a string of 1s and 0s). More ...
Intel's Sandy Bridge Micro-Architecture
"Sandy Bridge" is Intel's code name for a new cpu core microarchitecture. It introduces a few new or improved features. The memory controller, the PCI Express controller, and video circuitry are all located within the processor die and the new ring architecture uses a Last Level Cache between the CPU and graphics cores. More ...
