Unit 2 On The Buses

Address Bus
* unidirectional (fussy postman)
* tells us the address of memory location in main memory
* width of address bus tells us number of storage locations ( 2 ^ width)



Data Bus
* bi-directional
* carries to the processor from input and output devices and visa versa
* number of wires tells us quantity of Data which can be carried


Increasing Width and Effect on Performance

Address Bus - NO EFFECT, increases the number of unique addresses which can be accessed

Data Bus - Increases performance as more data can be carried simultaneously! (this is the Word Size)