In a nutshell
The von Neumann architecture is the blueprint behind almost every computer: a CPU, a single memory, and I/O, all connected by a shared bus. Its defining idea is the stored program — instructions live in the same memory as the data, so the machine is reprogrammed by loading new memory rather than rewiring. The catch is the von Neumann bottleneck: because code and data travel the same bus, the CPU cannot fetch an instruction and its data at the same time.