single bus architecture

Bus architecture uses common data signaling paths for multiple devices, rather than have separate connections between each set of devices that need to communicate.

For example, a data bus can be used for data to and from dynamic RAM, to and from mass storage, and to and from peripheral devices, rather than having one set of wires from the CPU for memory, another set for I/O, and so forth.

There is often a mechanism for devices to signal when they need to use the bus, while it is in use, and what is the nature of the use (data/instructions/controls/etc).

Bus control can become quite complicated when numerous asynchronous processes are attempting to share the bus efficiently.