Embedded

System Design
Lecture-2

Dr. Nalin Kumar Sharma

1
Objectives of the lecture

• Basic of computing systems

• Microcontrollers
• Microprocessor

2
Computing System

3
CPU (Central
Processing Unit)
• It is a general-purpose
processor.
• It is a programmable digital
system intended to solve
computation tasks in a large
variety of applications.

4
Microprocessor

• A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data

processing logic and control is included on a single
integrated circuit (IC)
• The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and
control circuitry required to perform the functions of a
computer's central processing unit (CPU).

5
Evolution of
Microprocessors
• Transistor was invented in 1948 (Bell lab). IC was invented in 1958
(By Texas Instruments).
• The first microprocessor was invented by INTEL(INTegrated
ELectronics).

6
 Name Year of Invention Inst. per sec
INTEL 4004/4040 (4
1971 60,000
bit)

8085 (8-bit) 1976 769230

8086 (16-bit) 1978 2.5 Million

PENTIUM (32-bit) 1993 188M

Core-2 (64-bit) 2006 27,079 M

I7 (64-bit) 2011 92,000 M

I9 (64-bit) 2018 412,000 M

AMD Ryzen
Threadripper 3990X 2020 2,356,230
7
M
(64 core)
Datapath
• It contains an arithmetic-logic unit (ALU) capable of
transforming data through arithmetic operations.
• It also contains registers capable of storing temporary data.
• The internal data bus is the bus over which data travels within
the datapath.
• The external data bus is the bus over which data is brought to
and from the data memory.
• We measure size of processor by bit-width of the datapath
components. Ex: 64-bit processors.

8
Controller/ Control Logic
• It consists of circuitry for retrieving program instructions, and for moving data through
the datapath according to those instructions. It contains :
• program counter (PC) that holds the address in memory of the next program
instruction to fetch.
• instruction register (IR) to hold the fetched instruction.

• Based on this instruction, the controller’s control logic generates the appropriate signals
to control the flow of data in the datapath.
• The address size determines the number of directly accessible memory locations,
referred to as the address space or memory space. Thus, a processor with a 16-bit
PC can directly address 216 = 65,536 memory locations. We would typically refer to
this address space as 64K

9
Memory

• We can classify stored information in memory as either

program or data.
• Program information consists of the sequence of
instructions that cause the processor to carry out the
desired system functionality.
• Data information represents the values being input, output
and transformed by the program.

10
Two memory architectures: (a)
Harvard, (b) Princeton

11
Memory
• Read-only memory (ROM): Program memory
• Readable and writable memory (RAM): Data
Memory

12
13
Internal and External Memory

• Memory may be on-chip or off-chip.

• On-chip memory resides on the same IC as the
processor, while off-chip memory resides on a separate
IC.
• The processor can usually access on-chip memory must
faster than off-chip memory, perhaps in just one cycle, but
finite IC capacity of course implies only a limited amount
of on-chip memory.
14
Cache Memory

• To reduce the time needed to access (read or write)

memory, a local copy of a portion of memory may
be kept in a small but especially fast memory called
cache.
• Cache memory often resides on-chip.
• Caches are used for both program memory (often
called instruction cache, or I-cache) as well as data
memory (often called D-cache).

15
How does Cache Memory
works?
• Cache memory is based on the principle that if at a particular time a processor
accesses a particular memory location, then the processor will likely access that
location and immediate neighbours of the location in the near future.
• When we first access a location in memory, we copy that location and some
number of its neighbours (called a block) into cache, and then access the copy of
the location in cache.
• When we access another location, we first check a cache table to see if a copy of
the location resides in cache.
• Cache hit: If the copy does reside in cache, we can read or write that location
very quickly.
• Cache miss: If the copy does not reside in cache, we must copy the location’s
block into cache, which takes a lot of time. 16
(a) general-purpose, (b) application-specific,
(c) single-purpose processor.

17
Microcontroller

• Microprocessors require external chips like

RAM, ROM, Input / Output ports and other
components in order to design a complete
working system.
• Microcontrollers are the devices that
actually fit the profile “Computer – on – a
chip” as it consists of a main processing
unit or processor along with some other
components that are necessary to make it
a complete computer. 18
The first microcontroller was developed in 1971 by Texas
Instruments and is called TMS 1000.

19
Instruction execution
• A microprocessor’s execution of instructions consists of several basic
stages:
1. Fetch instruction: the task of reading the next instruction from memory
into the instruction register.
2. Decode instruction: the task of determining what operation the
instruction in the instruction register represents (e.g., add, move, etc.).
3. Fetch operands: the task of moving the instruction’s operand data into
appropriate registers.
4. Execute operation: the task of feeding the appropriate registers through
the ALU and back into an appropriate register.
5. Store results: the task of writing a register into memory.
• If each stage takes one clock cycle, then we can see that a single
20
instruction may take several cycles to complete.
Flow of control logic in
instruction
• Ex: Adding two values.
1. Fetch instruction of adding,
2. decode it,
3. Inputting two values in particular registers,
4. send the values into the ALU, storing ALU results into a particular
register,
5. moving data between register and memory.
• Finally, the next-state logic determines the next value of the PC.

21