Download lecture notes 4/01/2008

Basic Computer
• The following discussions are based on a
fictitious computer called “Basic
Computer” by the author of the textbook
• It’s a much better way to learn computer
architecture concepts than trying to
understand the Intel Pentium architecture
Assembly Language
• Every computer architecture (or family of
architectures) has its own unique assembly
language
• Unlike Java, you should not learn assembly
language syntax, data types, etc.
• You should learn to program/think at the
assembly language level
– It’s a way of thinking that requires intimate knowledge
of the underlying hardware architecture
Assembly Language
Instructions
• Each instruction has two basic parts
– Operation code (opcode)
• What the instruction wants the processor to do
– Operand(s) (registers, memory addresses)
• Data location that the instruction wants the
processor to manipulated
• Some operands will be explicit while
others will be implicit (implied by the
opcode)
Assembly Language
Instructions
• n-bit instruction format
n-1
m+1
opcode
m
0
operand/address
2(n-1)-(m+1) opcodes
2(m+1) addresses
• Example – 16 bit instruction
15
12 11
opcode
operand/address
0
24 = 16 opcodes
212 =4096 addresses
Assembly Language
Instructions
• Instructions within the same Assembly
language may be of differing lengths
– i.e. not all instructions utilize the same
number of bits as we saw with the Pentium
Internal Operation
• To execute an assembly language instruction
the processor goes through 4 steps
–
–
–
–
Fetch an instruction from memory
Decode the instruction
Read the operands from memory/registers
Execute the instruction
• This is often referred to as the Fetch-Execute
cycle or the Instruction cycle
• To execute a program the processor repeats this
cycle until a halt instruction is reached
Internal Operation
• All this is under the control of the Control Unit
• This is the component that decodes the
instruction and sends out microoperations to the
rest of the hardware
– The control unit can be hardwired
• Made up entirely of sequential circuits designed to do
precisely the fetch-execute steps – fixed instruction set
– The control unit can be microprogrammed
• A small programmable processor within the processor –
programmable instruction set
• More on this later
Addressing Modes
• In designing a computer architecture the
designer must specify the instruction set
– Opcode/operand pairs
• In specifying operands there are a number
of alternatives
– Immediate instructions
– Direct address operands
– Indirect address operands
Immediate Instruction
• The 2nd part of the instruction is the
operand (rather than the address of the
operand)
• An example might be an instruction that
adds a constant to a register
add 3
– The “3” is the value we want to add, not an
address in memory
Direct Address Instruction
• The 2nd part of the instruction is the
memory address of operand
• An example might be an instruction that
adds a value in memory to a register
add 0x30213
– The “0x30213” is the memory address of the
value that we want to add
Indirect Address Instruction
• The 2nd part of the instruction is the
memory address of the location that holds
the memory address of the operand
• An example might be an instruction that
adds a value in memory to a register
add 0x30213
– The “0x30213” is a memory address that
holds the memory address of the value that
we want to add
Addressing Modes
I opcode
address
Mode bit
Immediate
0 addc
Operand
Direct
3
0
0x33
add
Indirect
0x33
0x42
1
add
0x33
0x33
0x42
0x42
0x88
Operand
Operand
Addressing Modes
• The term effective address refers to the
actual address of the operand
– For the previous example
• Immediate address mode
– Effective address is the instruction itself
• Direct address mode
– Effective address is the memory location 0x33
• Indirect addressing mode
– Effective address is the memory location 0x42
Addressing Modes
• Something in the instruction word will
specify which addressing mode is
applicable
– The operand itself (for immediate instructions)
– A designated bit (for direct vs. indirect
address instructions)
Addressing Modes
• Indirect addressing is a convenient way to
implement arrays (which are nothing more
than pointers to blocks of contiguous
memory)
• Some architectures define additional
modes such as “read location then
increment”
– These are all derivations of the three defined
here
Registers
• In designing a computer architecture the
designer must specify the register set
• There are essentially two categories
– Special purpose registers
– General purpose registers
Special Purpose Registers
• Program Counter (PC)
– Holds the memory address of the next instruction of
our program
• Memory Address Register (AR)
– Holds the address of a location in memory that we
want to access (read/write)
• The size of (number of bits in) these two
registers is determined by the number of
memory addresses in our architecture
Special Purpose Registers
• Instruction Register (IR)
– Holds the instruction (opcode/operand) we are about
to execute
• Data Register (DR)
– Holds the operand read from memory to be sent to
the ALU
• Accumulator (AC)
– Holds an input to the ALU and the output from the
ALU
Special Purpose Registers
• Input Register (INPR)
– Holds data received from a specified external
device
• Output Register (OUTR)
– Holds data to be sent to a specified external
device
General Purpose Registers
• Temporary Register (TR)
– For general usage either by our program or
the architecture
Registers
• These registers (shown previously) are specified for the fictitious
architecture given in the textbook
• All architectures will have these in some form
• Most architectures will have more than just these
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
More general purpose registers
Stack pointers
Interrupts
Program status bits
Multiple I/O ports
Timers
etc.
• To effectively program the architecture (in assembly language) you
need to be aware of all the available registers and their usage
• High level language compilers possess this knowledge
Bus
• In designing a computer architecture the
designer must specify the bus layout
– The size of the bus (in bits)
– What is connected to the bus
– Access control to the bus
• Recall that a bus is an efficient alternative to lots
of wires when it comes to transferring data
between registers, control units, and memory
locations
Bus Architecture
Memory unit
111
4096x16
ALU
address
AR
001
PC
010
DR
011
AC
100
IR
101
TR
110
E
INPR
OUTR
clock
16-bit Bus
S2 Access
S1
S0 Select
Bus Architecture
• The three access select lines determine which register is
allowed to write to the bus at a given time (recall that
only one write at a time is allowed)
• Registers have load input signals (LD) that tell them to
read from the bus
• If registers are smaller than the bus (less bits) than
unused bits are set to 0
• Some registers have additional input signals
– Increment (INR) and Clear (CLR)
– See figure 5-4, page 130 of the textbook
Bus Architecture
• Memory has read/write input signals that tell it
when to take data from the bus and send data to
the bus
• Memory addresses (for both read and write
operations) are always specified via the Address
Register (AR)
– An alternative (used in many architectures) is a two
bus system
• One address bus
• One data bus
Bus Architecture
• Results of all ALU (arithmetic, logic, and shift
operations) are always sent to the Accumulator (AC)
register
– The ALU is the only way to set values into the accumulator
except for the clear (CLR) and increment (INR) control lines
• Inputs to the ALU come from
– The Accumulator (AC)
– The Data Register (DR)
– The Input Register (INPR)
• The E output from the ALU is the carry-out (Extended
AC) bit
– Many architectures pack this into a register with other status
bits such as overflow
Bus Architecture
• Some pairs of microoperations can be
performed in a single clock cycle
– The key is to make sure they don’t both try to
put data on the bus
– Consider the RTL statement
DR ← AC, AC ← DR
– This is allowed since the DR ← AC
microoperation uses the bus while the AC ←
DR microoperation does not
Instructions
• We said previously that there are two parts
to an instruction
– Opcode
– Operand
• Realistically the two parts should be called
– Opcode
– Everything else
Instructions
• Three basic types
– Those that reference memory operands
– Those that reference register operands
– Those that reference I/O devices
• Again, this is only for the fictitious
architecture in the textbook but you will
find similar categorizations in real
architectures
Memory Instructions
• There are 14 instructions in this class
– 7 direct memory address forms
– 7 indirect memory address forms
15
I
14
12
opcode
11
0
address
I = 0 means direct memory address
I = 1 means indirect memory address
Memory Instructions
Hex Code
Symbol
I=0
I=1
Description
AND
0xxx
8xxx
Mem AND AC
ADD
1xxx
9xxx
Mem + AC
LDA
2xxx
Axxx
Load AC from Mem
STA
3xxx
Bxxx
Store AC to Mem
BUN
4xxx
Cxxx
Unconditional Branch
BSA
5xxx
Dxxx
Branch to Subroutine
ISZ
6xxx
Exxx
Increment and Skip if Zero
Register Instructions
• There are 12 instructions in this class
– They can use the “operand field” to specify
the register and type of operation since no
memory address is required
15
14
0 1
12
1
1
11
0
Register operation
Register Instructions
Symbol
Hex Code
Description
CLA
7800
Clear AC
CLE
7400
Clear E bit
CMA
7200
Complement AC
CME
7100
Complement E bit
CIR
7080
Circulate right AC and E
CIL
7040
Circulate left AC and E
INC
7020
Increment AC
Register Instructions (cont.)
Symbol
Hex Code
Description
SPA
7010
Skip next instruction if AC is positive
SNA
7008
Skip next instruction if AC is negative
SZA
7004
Skip next instruction if AC is 0
SZE
7002
Skip next instruction if E is 0
HLT
7001
Halt
I/O Instructions
• There are 6 instructions in this class
– They can use the “operand field” to specify
the exact operation since no memory address
is required
15
14
1 1
12
1
1
11
0
I/O operation
I/O Instructions
Symbol
Hex Code
Description
INP
F800
Input character to AC
OUT
F400
Output character from AC
SKI
F200
Skip on input flag
SKO
F100
Skip on output flag
ION
F080
Interrupt on
IOF
F040
Interrupt off
Instruction Decoding
• The control unit evaluates bits 15 – 12 to
determine the instruction format
• At first glance it appears that there can be
only 8 unique instructions since the
opcode resides in 4 bits
• But, additional instructions are created
through the use of the I bit an unused bits
in the operand field
Instruction Set Design
• To be useful, an architecture’s instruction
set must contain enough instructions to
allow all possible computations
• Four categories are necessary
– Arithmetic, logical, shift operations
– Moving data to/from memory from/to registers
– Control such as branch and conditional
checks
– Input/output
Instruction Set Design
• The set in the book is complete in that all the
possible operations on binary numbers can be
performed through combinations of instructions
• But, the set is very inefficient in that highly used
operations require multiple instructions
• This is why the Pentium instruction set is so
large and complicated – it makes for efficient
programs