All In One Computer Design for Dummies

Our world is full of computer-based systems: smartphones, laptops, tablets. And new, useful and attractive products are appearing regularly. How are they designed? What are they made of? Today’s high tech products contain dozens of subsystems, each composed of many components. Some are specialized, like a color display or a wireless transceiver. But the computing in a computing system is general and programmable. Interestingly, while computing provides the system “smarts”, it is built using two very simple components: switches and wire.So how does one create a smart product out of dumb components? First, these components are extremely versatile. Wire-connected switches can be used to build functional elements (e.g., perform arithmetic operations), memory elements (e.g., store values and program instructions), and control elements (e.g., sequence program instructions in a execution datapath). These elements can for a programmable computer that can exhibit a very smart behavior.Second, technology offers the ability to integrate millions or even billions of wire- connected switches in an extremely compact integrated circuit (IC). This large number of switches supports the construction of a powerful programmable computer and sophisticated real-world interfaces. The low cost of these devices allows them to be incorporated in a wide range of products.Designing systems with millions of components is a challenge. A successful strategy is a design hierarchy. Use several simple elements to produce a more complex component. Then design the next level using these more complex components. The design hierarchy below spans from switches and wire to assembly programming.