Von Neumann architecture

The von Neumann architecture, also known as the von Neumann model and Princeton architecture, is a computer architecture based on that described in 1945 by the mathematician and physicist John von Neumann and others in the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC. This describes a design architecture for an electronic digital computer with parts consisting of a processing unit containing an arithmetic logic unit and processor registers, a control unit containing an instruction register and program counter, a memory to store both data and instructions, external mass storage, and input and output mechanisms. The meaning has evolved to be any stored-program computer in which an instruction fetch and a data operation cannot occur at the same time because they share a common bus. This is referred to as the von Neumann bottleneck and often limits the performance of the system.