Dr. John von Neumann:
John von Neumann circa the 1940s
Any discussion concerning computers must include the contributions of the famed Hungarian mathematician/genius Dr. John von Neumann. He was the first to stipulate, in his famous 1945 paper, the general requirements for an electronic computer. This device was called a stored-program computer, since the data and program instructions are kept in electronic memory. The specification was a departure from earlier designs where computers were programmed via hard wiring. Von Neumann's basic design has endured to this day, as practically all modern-day processors exhibit some vestiges of this design architecture (see the following figure):
Von Neumann architecture
Von Neumann's design basic components are tabulated as follows:
The four main elements:
A memory component
A controller unit
A logic unit for doing arithmetic
An input and output port
A means for storing data and program instructions termed read/write random access memory
The data is information utilized by the program
The program instructions consist of coded data that guides the computer to complete a task
Controller Unit acquires information from memory, deciphers the information, and then sequentially synchronizes processes to achieve the programmed task
Basic arithmetic operations occur in the Arithmetic Logic Unit
Input and Output ports allow access to the Central Processing Unit (CPU) by a human operator
Additional information can be obtained at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
So, how does this architecture relates to parallel processors/supercomputers? You might ask. Well, supercomputers consist of nodes, which are, in fact, individual computers. These computers contain processors with the same architectural elements described previously.