Explain bus architecture and its role in interconnecting various components of a digital system.

Bus architecture is the way a common set of wires is arranged to connect the CPU, memory and I/O devices. It has three parts: an address bus, a data bus and a control bus. A single shared bus is cheap and simple, but only one transfer can occur at a time. Large systems use many buses, such as a fast local bus and a slower I/O bus, joined by a bridge.

Its role is to let any unit communicate with any other over the same wires. It cuts the number of connections, makes it easy to add devices, and uses standard signals. An arbiter decides who uses it.