Difference between the Harvard and Von Neumann architectures

Question

Hello. As for Harvard vs Von Neumann architecture, I read that Harvard has one memory for data and instructions while V.N has two different memory systems, one for data and one for instructions.

I don’t quite understand this difference. What specifically is the difference between **instructions and data**? Aren’t all instructions data? And what kind of memory are we talking about here? RAM or CPU cache?

Thank you.

In: Technology

Answer 1

Well, let’s use a cooking analogy. In one architecture, you keep your recipes in a cabinet and your raw ingredients in a pantry. In the other one, ingredients and individual steps from the recipe are in the pantry together (and interleaved).