Hardware architecture
Encyclopedia
In engineering, hardware architecture refers to the identification of a system's physical components and their interrelationships. This description, often called a hardware design model, allows hardware designers to understand how their components fit into a system architecture and provides software component designers important information needed for software development and integration. Clear definition of a hardware architecture allows the various traditional engineering disciplines (e.g., electrical and mechanical engineering) to work more effectively together to develop and manufacture new machines, devices and components.

Hardware is also an expression used within the computer engineering industry to explicitly distinguish the (electronic computer) hardware from the software which runs in it. But hardware, within the automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

 and software engineering
Software engineering
Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software...

 disciplines, need not simply be a computer of some sort. A modern automobile runs vastly more software than the Apollo spacecraft. Also, modern aircraft cannot function without running tens of millions of computer instructions embedded and distributed throughout the aircraft and resident in both standard computer hardware and in specialized hardward components such as IC wired logic gates, analog and hybrid devices, and other digital components. The need to effectively model how separate physical components combine to form complex systems is important over a wide range of applications, including computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones, surgical instrumentation, satellites, and submarines.

Hardware architecture is therefore the representation of an engineered (or to be engineered) electronic or electromechanical hardware system, and the process and discipline for effectively implementing the design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

(s) for such a system. It is generally part of a larger integrated system encompassing information
Information
Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

, software, and device prototyping.

It is a representation because it is used to convey information about the related elements comprising a hardware system, the relationships among those elements, and the rules governing those relationships.

It is a process because a sequence of steps is prescribed to produce or change the architecture, and/or a design from that architecture, of a hardware system within a set of constraints.

It is a discipline because a body of knowledge is used to inform practitioner
Practitioner
A practitioner is someone who engages in an occupation, profession, religion, or way of life.Practitioner may refer to:* Medical practitioner* Justice practitioner* Solitary practitioner, in Wicca and Paganism...

s as to the most effective way to design the system within a set of constraints.

A hardware architecture is primarily concerned with the internal electrical (and, more rarely, the mechanical
Electromechanics
In engineering, electromechanics combines the sciences of electromagnetism, of electrical engineering and mechanics. Mechanical engineering in this context refers to the larger discipline which includes chemical engineering, and other related disciplines. Electrical engineering in this context...

) interface
Electrical connector
An electrical connector is an electro-mechanical device for joining electrical circuits as an interface using a mechanical assembly. The connection may be temporary, as for portable equipment, require a tool for assembly and removal, or serve as a permanent electrical joint between two wires or...

s among the system's components or subsystem
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

s, and the interface
Computer bus
In computer architecture, a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers.Early computer buses were literally parallel electrical wires with multiple connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same...

  between the system and its external environment, especially the devices operated by or the electronic displays viewed by a user
User (computing)
A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...

. (This latter, special interface, is known as the computer human interface, AKA human computer interface, or HCI; formerly called the man-machine interface.) Integrated circuit (IC) designers are driving current technologies into innovative approaches for new products. Hence, multiple layers of active devices are being proposed as single chip, opening up opportunities for disruptive microelectronic, optoelectronic, and new microelectromechanical hardware implementation.

Background

Prior to the advent of digital computers, the electronics and other engineering disciplines used the terms system and hardware as they are still commonly used today. However, with the arrival of digital computers on the scene and the development of software engineering as a separate discipline, it was often necessary to distinguish among engineered hardware artifacts, software artifacts, and the combined artifacts.

A programmable
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

 hardware artifact, or machine, that lacks its software program is impotent; even as a software artifact, or program, is equally impotent unless it can be used to alter the sequential states of a suitable (hardware) machine. However, a hardware machine and its software program can be designed to perform an almost illimitable number of abstract and physical tasks. Within the computer and software engineering disciplines (and, often, other engineering disciplines, such as communications), then, the terms hardware, software, and system came to be used to distinguish among the hardware which could run a software program, the software program itself, and the hardware device complete with its program, respectively.

The hardware engineer or architect deals (more or less) exclusively with the hardware device; the software engineer or architect deals (more or less) exclusively with the software program; and the systems engineer or systems architect
Systems architect
The systems architect establishes the basic structure of the system, defining the essential core design features and elements that provide the framework for all that follows, and are the hardest to change later....

 is responsible for seeing that the software program is capable of properly running within the hardware device, and that the system composed of the two entities is capable of properly interacting with its external environment, especially the user, and performing its intended function.

A hardware architecture, then, is an abstract representation of an electronic and/or an electromechanical device which is capable of running a fixed or changeable program.

A hardware architecture generally includes some form of analog, digital, or hybrid electronic computer, along with electronic and mechanical sensors and actuators. Hardware architecting may be viewed as a 'partitioning scheme
Scheme (mathematics)
In mathematics, a scheme is an important concept connecting the fields of algebraic geometry, commutative algebra and number theory. Schemes were introduced by Alexander Grothendieck so as to broaden the notion of algebraic variety; some consider schemes to be the basic object of study of modern...

,' or algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...

, which considers all of the system's present and foreseeable requirements and arranges the necessary hardware components into a workable set of cleanly bounded subsystems with no more parts than are required. That is, it is a partitioning scheme which is exclusive
Exclusive
Exclusive typically means not with other things or not including other things.The terms inclusive and exclusive are contrasting terms, and often appear in the same context to describe contrasting things.Exclusive may refer to:...

, inclusive
Inclusive
Inclusive may refer to:* Inclusion * inclusive disjunction, A or B or both* inclusive fitness, in evolutionary theory, how many kin are supported including non-descendants* inclusive interval includes its endpoints...

, and exhaustive. A major purpose of the partitioning is to arrange the elements in the hardware subsystems so that there is a minimum of electrical connections and electronic communications needed among them. In both software and hardware, a good subsystem tends to be seen as a meaningful "object
Object (computer science)
In computer science, an object is any entity that can be manipulated by the commands of a programming language, such as a value, variable, function, or data structure...

." Moreover, a clear allocation of user requirements to the architecture (hardware and software) provides an effective basis for validation tests
Verification and Validation
In software project management, software testing, and software engineering, verification and validation is the process of checking that a software system meets specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose...

 of the user's requirements in the as-built system.

See also

  • Computer-aided manufacturing
    Computer-aided manufacturing
    Computer-aided manufacturing is the use of computer software to control machine tools and related machinery in the manufacturing of workpieces. This is not the only definition for CAM, but it is the most common; CAM may also refer to the use of a computer to assist in all operations of a...

     (CAM)
  • Electronic design automation
    Electronic design automation
    Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...

     (EDA)
  • Elmer FEM solver
    Elmer FEM solver
    Elmer is an open source computational tool for multi-physics problems. It has been developed by CSC in collaboration with Finnish universities, research laboratories and industry....

  • Finite element analysis
  • Hardware architect
  • Integrated circuit
    Integrated circuit
    An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

     (IC)
  • System-on-a-chip
    System-on-a-chip
    A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...

     (SoC)
  • Very-large-scale integration
    Very-large-scale integration
    Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.The first semiconductor...

     (VLSI)
  • VHSIC Hardware Description Language
    VHSIC Hardware Description Language
    VHDL is a hardware description language used in electronic design automation to describe digital and mixed-signal systems such as field-programmable gate arrays and integrated circuits.- History :...

    (VHDL)
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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