CPU Organization Unit 4

4.10 INTRODUCTION TO RISC AND CISC

CISC stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer. In Complex

Instruction Set Computer, a single instruction can execute several
low level operations (such as a load from memory, an arithmetic
operation, and a memory store) and/ or capable of multi-step
operations or addressing modes within single instructions.

The design constraints that lead to the development of

CISC give CISC instructions set some common characteristics:

 A 2-opearand format, where instructions have a source and

a destination i.e., register to register, registers to memory,
and memory to register commands. It also provides
multiple addressing modes for memory, including
specialized modes for indexing through arrays.
 Variable length instructions where the length often varies
according to the addressing modes.
 Instructions which need multiple clock cycles to execute.
 Complex instruction decoding logic, driven by the need of a
single instruction to support multiple addressing modes.
 A small number of general purpose registers and several
special purpose registers.
 A “condition code” register which is set as a side effect of
most instructions. This register reflects whether the result
of the last operation is less than, equal to, or greater than
zero and records if certain error condition occurs.

Let us have an example of a specific instruction called MULT.

When executed this instruction, it loads the two values (or
operand) into separate registers and multiplies the operand in the
execution unit, and then stores the product in the appropriate
register. Thus, the entire task of multiplying two numbers
completed with one instruction: MULT 2:3 5:2

So, MULT is known as complex instruction. It operates directly

on the computer’s memory banks and does require the
programmer to explicitly call any loading or storing functions. It
closely resembled a command in a higher level language. For
instance, if we let “a” represent the value of 2:3 and “b” represents
the value of 5:2, then this command is identical to the C statement
“a = a * b”.

The primary advantages of this approach is are-

 Compiler has to do very little work to translate a high-level

language statement into assembly.

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 As so many low level instructions are embedded into a

single instruction, this approach needs little memory for
storing the instructions.

RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer. RISC

architecture based computer only use simple instructions that can
be executed within one clock cycle. Thus the “MULT” command
described above could be divided into three separate command-

1. LOAD- means moves data from memory bank to a register.

2. PROD- means finds the product of the two operands
located within the registers.
3. STORE- means moves data from a register to the memory
bank.

In order to make the exact series of the steps mentioned

above, the programmer needs to code four lines of assembly code
as follows-

LOAD A, 2:3

LOAD B, 5:2

PROD A, B

STORE 2:3, A

The following are the differences between CISC and RISC

Architecture:

1. CISC architecture emphasis on hardware, but RISC

architecture emphasis on software.
2. CISC architecture includes multi-clock complex
instructions, but RISC architecture uses single clock
reduced instruction only.
3. CISC architecture uses variable length instructions, but
RISC architecture uses fixed length instructions.
4. CISC architecture uses many addressing modes, but RISC
architecture few addressing modes.
5. In CISC architecture, complexity is in compiler, but in RISC
architecture, complexity in micro-code.
6. In CISC architecture, many instructions can access
memory, but in RISC architecture only LOAD/ STORE
instructions can access memory.

As we know that following performance equation is commonly

used for expressing a computer’s performance ability-

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Time per program execution is-

(Time/ Cycle) x (Cycles/ Instruction) x (Instructions/ Program)

The CISC approach attempts to minimize the number of

instructions per program, sacrificing the number of cycles per
instructions. But RISC approach minimizes number of instructions
per program, by sacrificing the number of cycles per instructions.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS - 4

5. Fill in the blanks.

(i) A ______________is an elementary CPU operation,

performed during one clock pulse

(ii) In hardwired scheme, implementing the control operation is

through _____________.

(iii) RISC stands for __________________ and CISC stands

for ________________.

(iv) RISC approach minimizes the ____________________,

by sacrificing the ___________________________.

6. State whether the following statements are True or False

(i) MAR  (PC), means move the content of memory location

specified by Memory Address register to Memory Buffer
Register.
(ii) MAR  (IR (Address)), means move the address field of
instruction to memory address register.
(iii)In micro programmed implementation of control unit, speed
of operation is high, but in hardwired implementation,
speed of operation is low.
(iv) CISC architecture emphasis on software, but RISC
architecture emphasis on hardware.
(v) RISC approach minimizes the number of number of
instructions per program, by sacrificing the number of
cycles per instructions.

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CPU Organization Unit 4

4.11 LET US SUM UP

 CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. The building

blocks of the CPU are ALU, Control Unit and
Registers.
 ALU is a digital circuit for performing the arithmetic and
logical operations. Control Unit basically performs
sequencing and execution.
 Registers are divided into two categories- User Visible
Registers and Control and Status Registers.
 The Bus which is connecting the major three
components of a computer (CPU, Memory and I/O), is
called System Bus
 An instruction format is the layout of the bits of an
instruction, in terms of its constituent fields.
 The mechanism, by which the execution control of the
CPU temporarily gets jumped from one program routine
execution to another one program routine execution, is
known as Interrupt.
 The processing required for executing a single
instruction is known as Instruction Cycle.
 Two types of implementation for the control unit
available- Hardwired and Micro programmed.
 RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer and
CISC stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer.

4.12 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR

PROGRESS

1. (i) Central Processing Unit

(ii) ALU, Control Unit, Registers
(iii) Arithmetic Logic Unit
(iv) Sequencing, Execution
(v) clock cycle time.
(vi) Program Counter
(vii) Segment Pointer register

2. (i) Bus
(ii) System Bus
(iii) address lines, data lines, control lines
(iv) centralized, distributed
(v) opcode, operand
(vi) Intermediate mode

3. (i) true (ii) false (iii) false (iv) false

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