Computer Architecture ‫إﺑﺘﺴﺎم أﺑﻜﺮ‬.

‫أ‬
sem7 lecture No (10) ‫ﻋﻠﻮم ﺣﺎﺳﻮب‬

CPU Architecture (RISC and CISC)

Contents of Lecture:
 CPU Architecture
 The Semantic Gap
 Main features of CISC
 Main Characteristics of RISC
 RISC vs. CISC

References for This Lecture:

 William Stallings, Computer Organization and Architecture Designing For Performance,
9th Edition, Chapter 15: Reduced Instruction Set Computers

CPU Architecture:
 CPU Architecture also known as Instruction Set Architecture (ISA).
 ISA allows communication between software and hardware.
 ISA is also a group of commands for CPU in machine Language.
 Basically ISA tall you how processor is going to process your program and
instructions (commands). Instructions is also called opcode or operation code.

 Example of opcode:
 add
 Jump
 Load
 store

 There are two type of ISA:

 CISC
 RISC

 CISC:
 CISC is stand for Complex Instruction Set Computing. It is architecture for large
number of instructions.
 Example of CISC:
 The microprocessor of CISC is Intel 80286 which is the 64bit version of 8086
instructions set.
 Its used on desktop (PC) and laptop.

 RISC:
 RISC is stand for Reduced Instruction Set Computing. It is has lesser number of
instructions.
 Example of RISC:
 ARM processor
 Its used on taplet, smart phone and even in game consle.

Page 1 of 5
 Computer Architecture ‫إﺑﺘﺴﺎم أﺑﻜﺮ‬.‫أ‬
sem7 lecture No (10) ‫ﻋﻠﻮم ﺣﺎﺳﻮب‬
 Example of CISC and RISC:
Writing A * B
 For CISC Instruction Set there is special command called mull (to complex)
Mull A, B

 For RISC Instruction Set its divided into numbers of small instructions (small instructions)
LOAD R1, A
LOAD R2, B
PROD A, B
STORE R3, A

 Both RISC and CISC architectures have been developed as an attempt to cover the semantic
gap, and consequently to reduce the ever growing software costs.

The Semantic Gap:

 Semantic gap is the difference between the operations provided in HLLs and those provided
in computer architecture.

 In order to improve efficiency of software development, powerful high-level programming

languages have been developed (e.g., C++, Java).
 They support higher levels of abstraction.

 This evolution has increased the semantic gap between programming languages and machine
languages.

Main features of CISC:

 A large number of instructions (> 200) and complex instructions and data types.
 Many and complex addressing modes.

 Direct hardware implementations of high-level language statements.

 For example, CASE (switch)

 Microprogramming techniques are used so that complicated instructions can be implemented.

 Memory bottleneck is a major problem, due to complex addressing modes and multiple
memory accesses per instruction.

Page 2 of 5
 Computer Architecture ‫إﺑﺘﺴﺎم أﺑﻜﺮ‬.‫أ‬
sem7 lecture No (10) ‫ﻋﻠﻮم ﺣﺎﺳﻮب‬
Microprogrammed Control:
 Microprogramming is a technique used to implement the control unit.

 The basic idea is to implement the control unit as a micro-program execution machine (a
computer inside a computer).
 The set of micro-operations occurring at one time defines a microinstruction.
 A sequence of microinstructions is called a microprogram.

 The execution of a machine instruction becomes the execution of a sequence of micro-

instructions.
 This is similar to that a C++ statement is implemented by a sequence of machine
instructions.

Problems with CISC:

 A large instruction set requires complex and potentially time consuming hardware steps to
decode and execute the instructions.

 Complex machine instructions may not match high-level language statements exactly, in
which case they may be of little use.
 This will be a major problem if the number of languages is getting bigger.

 Instruction sets designed with specialized instructions for several high-level languages will
not be efficient when executing program of a given language.
 Complex design tasks.

Page 3 of 5
 Computer Architecture ‫إﺑﺘﺴﺎم أﺑﻜﺮ‬.‫أ‬
sem7 lecture No (10) ‫ﻋﻠﻮم ﺣﺎﺳﻮب‬
Main Characteristics of RISC:
 A small number of simple instructions (desirably < 100).
 Simple and small decode and execution hardware are required.
 A hard-wired controller is needed, rather than using microprogramming.
 The CPU takes less silicon area to implement, and runs also faster.

 Execution of one instruction per clock cycle.

 The instruction pipeline performs more efficiently due to simple instructions and similar
execution patterns.

 Complex operations are executed as a sequence of simple instructions.

 In the case of CISC they are executed as one single or a few complex instructions.

 An illustrative example with the following assumption:

 A program with 80% of executed instructions being simple and 20% complex.
 CISC: simple instructions take 4 cycles, complex instructions take 8 cycles; cycle
time is 100 ns.
 RISC: simple instructions are executed in one cycle; complex operations are
implemented as a sequence of instructions (14 instructions on average); cycle time is
75 ns.

 Load-and-store architecture
 Only LOAD and STORE instructions reference data in memory.
 All other instructions operate only with registers (are register-to-register instructions).

 Only a few simple addressing modes are used.

 Ex. register, direct, register indirect, displacement.

 Instructions are of fixed length and uniform format.

 Loading and decoding of instructions are simple and fast.
 It is not needed to wait until the length of an instruction is known in order to start
decoding it.
 Decoding is simplified because the opcode and address fields are located in the same
position for all instructions.

 A large number of registers is available.

 Variables and intermediate results can be stored in registers and do not require
repeated loads and stores from/to memory.
 All local variables of procedures and the passed parameters can be stored in registers.

Page 4 of 5
 Computer Architecture ‫إﺑﺘﺴﺎم أﺑﻜﺮ‬.‫أ‬
sem7 lecture No (10) ‫ﻋﻠﻮم ﺣﺎﺳﻮب‬
 The large number of registers is due to that the reduced complexity of the processor leaves
silicon space on the chip to implement them.
 This is usually not the case with CISC machines.

Register Windows:
 A large number of registers is usually very useful.
 However, if contents of all registers must be saved at every procedure call, more registers
mean longer delay.
 A solution to this problem is to divide the register file into a set of fixed-size windows.
 Each window is assigned to a procedure.
 Windows for adjacent procedures are overlapped to allow parameter passing.

Main Advantages of RISC:

 Best support is given by optimizing most used and most time consuming architecture
aspects.
 Frequently executed instructions.
 Memory reference.
 Procedure call/return.
 Pipeline design.
 Less design complexity, reducing design cost, and reducing the time between designing and
marketing.

RISC vs. CISC:

 CISC has more instrution sets than RISC so instrution cycle in CISC is more complex than
RISC.
 CISC is in hardware and RISC is in software.
 Execution time:
 CISC has multiple number of cycle per instrution
 RISC has 1 cycle per instrution
 CISC CPUs are more larger than RISC CPUs.
 RISC CPUs can but in a single chip which make RISC light and portable.
 Speed:
 CISC CPU take little while to process the instructions
 RISC can only perform simple task quicker than CISC.
 Most recent processors are not typical RISC or CISC, but combine advantages of both
approaches.
 Called EPIC (Explicity Parallal Instrution Computing).

Page 5 of 5