Xavier Institute of Engineering - A Sister Institute of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.

The computer lies at the heart of computing. Without it most of the computing disciplines today would be a branch of theoretical mathematics. A professional in any field of computing should not regard the computer as just a black box that executes programs by magic. All students of computing should acquire some understanding and appreciation of a computer system’s functional components, their characteristics, their performance, and their interactions. Students need to understand computer architecture in order to make best use of the software tools and computer languages they use to create programs.

Computer architecture refers to those attributes of a system visible to a programmer or, put another way, those attributes that have a direct impact on the logical execution of a program. Computer organization refers to the operational units and their interconnections that realize the architectural specifications. Examples of architectural attributes include the instruction set, the number of bits used to represent various data types (e.g., numbers, characters), I/O mechanisms, and techniques for addressing memory. Organizational attributes include those hardware details transparent to the programmer, such as control signals; interfaces between the computer and peripherals; and the memory technology used