star wars - Where is a droid's brain located?

Inspired by this clip, I was wondering where the brains (CPU's?) for the B1 battle-droids and C-3PO are located.

We see 3PO's head put on a battle droid's body and a battle droid's head put on 3PO's body. Three things then happen:

The battle droid head comments that his legs don't seem to respond.

3PO is shooting things and says, “Die Jedi scum”, then asks what made him say that.

We see the battle droid effectively using 3PO's arms to shoot, even though he commented that the legs didn't respond properly.

So, - Where is a droid's brain located? - Do they have more than one brain (and if so, how many brains do they have and what is each brain responsible for)?

Answer

...according to this:

Note the "COGNITIVE MODULE" in the cranial unit.

I could not find a canonical schematic or description of the internal workings of the B1 battle droid, but I was able to find this pertinent description of it in the online documentation for the game Star Wars: Republic Commando :

B1 BATTLE DROIDS

The standard "infantryman" of the Confederacy, the black-armored B1 Battle Droid is an upgrade of the Trade Federation's B1 as seen across the galaxy, and in the recent Trade Federation blockade and invasion of the planet of Naboo. They are relatively weak enemies, but make up for their weakness in pure numbers. They are typically equipped with a small, hand-held blaster rifle. WEAK SPOT: The "head" contains the neural circuits. Destroying it destroys the droid in quick order.

It would seem then, in-universe, that the odd behaviour we witness when their heads are swapped must be due to mismatched components or some other incompatibility.

It's also possible that the B1 body has a built-in failsafe to prevent it from having its cognitive module replaced with a unauthorized one (e.g. to make it turn on its fellow B1's during battle). When the "Jedi scum" who replaced the module turns the unit back on to test it, a command stored in some fixed memory in the body is implemented, causing the droid to say "Die Jedi scum" and then fire upon him or her (although this is pure speculation).

Comments

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