What is Von Neumann bottleneck

CPUs processing speed is much faster in comparsion to the main memory (RAM) as a result the CPU needs to wait longer to obtain data-word from the memory. The CPU and memory speed disparity is known as Von Neumann bottleneck.

How can this CPU-memory disparity be resolved?

This problem can be solved in two ways:

1. Use of cache memory between CPU and main memory
2. Using RISC computers

This performance problem can be reduced by introducing a cache memory (special type of fast memory) in between the CPU and the main memory.

This is because the speed of the cache memory is almost same as that of the CPU. So there is no waiting time for CPU and data-word to come to it for processing.

Another way of solving the problem is by using special type of computer known as Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC).

The main intention of the RISC is to reduce the total number of memory references made by the CPU; instead it uses large number of registers for the same purpose.