Hardware architecture

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 hardware 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.

Hence, multiple layers of active devices are being proposed as single chip, opening up opportunities for disruptive microelectronic, optoelectronic, and new microelectromechanical hardware implementation.

[4][5] 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.

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

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.