Microprocessor Based
Systems
Lecture No 04 RISC Architecture
By Nasir Mahmood
Overview of Last Lecture
IC Integration Trends
Intel has plans to continue riding on the Moore’s Law curve for another
ten years and has announced a 2.9 billion transistor chip for the
second quarter of 2011.
The chip will fit into an area the size of a fingernail and use 22
nanometer technology
Von Neumann Architecture
Execution of program stored in memory
Instruction cycle
Fetch, decode, Fetch operand, Execute, Store results
Today’s Lecture Outline
Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)
RISC Versus CISC Architecture
Need for Assembly Language
Harvard architecture
Summary
Instruction Set Architecture
What is an ISA?
It essentially describes the processor at a logical
level, as opposed to giving the implementation
details.
For example, the Intel 32-bit ISA(IA-32) has
several implementations including the Pentium
processors, cheaper Celeron processors, high-
performance Xeon processors
Programmer’s View of Computer System
RISC Versus CISC
At the ISA level, we can divide the designs
into two categories: RISC and CISC
CISC
Complex Instruction Set Computers
Intel IA-32 architecture
RISC
Reduced Instruction Set Computers
The MIPS, SPARC, PowerPC and ARM processor
families
ISC Versus CISC Contd..
RISC Versus CISC Contd..
RISC architectures use fixed-length instructions and
support simple addressing modes.
CISC designs use variable-length instructions to
accommodate various complex addressing modes.
Instruction length increases if an operand is in memory
as opposed to in a register. This is because we have to
specify the memory address as part of instruction
encoding, which takes many more bits. This
complicates instruction decoding and scheduling
RISC uses Single-cycle execution; CISC processors
typically took many clock cycles to complete a single
instruction.
Why Programs written in Assembly Language?
One of the main reasons for writing programs
in assembly language is to generate code that
is time-efficient.
The superiority of assembly language
programs in producing efficient code is a direct
manifestation of specificity. That is, assembly
language programs contain only the code that
is necessary to perform the given task
Why Programs written in Assembly Language?
Assembly language programs is to have direct
control over system hardware. High-level
languages, on purpose, provide a restricted
(abstract) view of the underlying hardware
It allows us to look at the internal details of the
processors
Harvard architecture
It is a computer architecture with physically separate
storage and signal pathways for instructions and data.
Von Neumann architecture the CPU can be either
reading an instruction or reading/writing data from/to
the memory. Both cannot occur at the same time
Book Reference for RISC Architecure
More on RISC Architecture
Book “Guide to RISC Processors for Programmers
and Engineers” by Sivarama P. Dandamudi
Summary
ISA
Describes the processor at a logical level
Difference Between RISC and CISC
Architectures
CISC controlled by micro-programmed control
Why to write programs in Assembly Language
More optimization and efficient code
Harvard Architecture Versus Von Neumann
Architecture
In Harvard Architectures separate instructions and
data paths, in Von Neumann it has common paths
THE END