2.

Instructions and Instruction Set

Architecture

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 Contents
2.1 x86-64 Architecture
2.2 General-purpose Integer Registers
2.3 Assembly Language
2.4 Assembly Program
2.5 Calling Convention
2.6 Control Structures
2.7 Arrays
2.8 Example of Assembly Programs

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 2.1 x86-64 Architecture
• It is an extended version of the x86 architecture originally developed
by AMD.

• It supports 64-bit computing.

• It is fully compatible with its predecessors (16-bit and 32-bit

architectures).

• It is a register-memory architecture.

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 2.2 General-Purpose Integer Registers
• A register is a temporary storage in the processor used for storing
intermediate values while conducting calculation.

• X86-64 defines 16 integer registers.

• Each register is 64 bits wide.

• The range of integer values can be stored in each register is shown in

Table 2.1 and 2.2.

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2.2 General-Purpose Integer Registers

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 2.2 General-Purpose Integer Registers
• Interpreting signed and unsigned integer values (using two’s
complement method)

• Unsigned integer value: 1000…0001

1000…0001 = (1*263)+(0*262)+…+(0*21)+(1*20) = 263+1

• Signed integer value: 1000…0001

1000…0001 = (1*-263)+(0*262)+…+(0*21)+(1*20) = -263+1

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 2.2 General-Purpose Integer Registers
• We refer to each register by its name.
• Table 2.3 shows the register names for x86-64.

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.3 Assembly Language
• An assembly language is a way to represent a sequence of machine
instructions in a human-friendly form.

• To execute an assembly program, we need to have an assembler to

translate the instructions into the machine code.

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 2.3 Assembly Language
• Here are how to write assembly instructions:

where OP = an operation, A and B = operands which can be registers,

constants, and memory.

• A dollar sign ($) is used to specify an integer constant.

• For example,
add $1,%rax → %rax = %rax + 1

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 2.3.1 Operands
• Three types of operands can be used in the assembly instructions.

1. Register is referred by its name.

2. Constant is any numerical literal preceded with a $.

3. Memory location can be referred to in several ways.

• A way to refer to a memory location is called an addressing mode.

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 2.3.1 Operands
• Note:
‘0x’ is a marker for a hexadecimal constant, and
‘0b’ is a marker for a binary constant.

• Table 2.4: Example of Operands in Assembly Instructions

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.3.1 Operands
• For example,
add $11,%rax → %rax = %rax + 11
add $0x11,%rax → % rax = %rax + 17
add $0b11,%rax → % rax = %rax + 3

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 Exercise
• Let %rax = 1, %rcx = 1024, and %rdx = 64. Wrtie the output of the
following instructions.

1. add %rcx,%rax

2. neg %rax

3. idiv %rcx

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Table 2.5 shows basic integer instructions in x86-64.
• Table 2.5 Integer Arithmetic Instruction 1

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: mov %rcx,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: add %rcx,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: sub %rcx,%rax

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 2.3.1 Operands
• An instruction idiv S divides a 128-bit value constructed by
concatenating %rdx and %rax by a register S.

• Note: dividend = quotient * divisor + remainder

o The dividend = %rdx:%rax
o The divisor = S
o The integer quotient = %rax
o The remainder = %rdx

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Table 2.6 shows basic integer instructions in x86-64.
• Table 2.6 Integer Arithmetic Instruction 2

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: and %rcx,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: shl $2,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: shr $2,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: sar $2,%rax

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 2.3.2 Instructions
• Instruction Execution Examples: shr $2,%rax

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 Exercise
• Let %rax = 10 and %rcx = 1024. Wrtie the output of the following
instructions.

1. not %rax

2. or $-1,%rax

3. shl $4,%rcx

4. shr $4,%rcx

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• An assembly program mainly is composed of a sequence of assembly
instructions.
• The processor do not understand the assembly instructions.
• An assembler is needed to translate assembly instructions into
machine code.
• Each assembly instruction can be one-to-one translated into a machine
instruction.

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• Each assembly program also includes a number of assembler
directives
o To tell the assembler how to translate the program
o To tell the assembler how to create an executable file.

• A directive always starts with a dot.

• Table 2.7 shows assembler directives.

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• An assembly program may include a number of labels.
• Each label is a number ended with a colon.
• It represents a memory address of instructions or constants.

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• Example2.2 An assembly program that output “Hello world”.

• The above assembly program is equivalent to the following C program.

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• Here is the output obtaining from the assembler.

Assembly

Hexa decimal

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 2.4 Assembly Program
• The previous machine instructions still cannot be executed since a C
standard library function (puts)
• We need to pass it to a linker to create an executable program.

From C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017, Chapter 2.

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 2.5 Calling Convention
• We need to follow a standard scheme for calling C functions called ‘calling
convention’. Here are part of them:

1.Pass parameters to function via registers in the following order:

%rdi, %rsi, %rdx, %rcx, %r8, %r9.

2.An integer value can be returned from a function via %rax.

3.The following registers may be changed when we make a function call:

%rax, %rcx, %rdx, %rsi, %rdi, %r8, %r9, %r10, %r11.

4. We need to save the values of the following registers before we make

any change:
%rbx, %rbp, %r12, %r13, %r14, %r15.

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 2.5 Calling Convention
• We study the assembly language in order to understand how machine
instructions work.
• We therefore do not write a stand-alone assembly program, but only
implement functions that can be called from C programs in the
assembly language.

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 2.5 Calling Convention
• Example 2.3 Implement a function sum(a, b, c) that accepts three
integer values and returns the sum of them.

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 2.5 Calling Convention
• Example 2.3 Implement a function sum(a, b, c) that accepts three
integer values and returns the sum of them.

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 2.6 Control Structures
• Each assembly program is just a sequence of instructions.
• No other structures are provided in the syntax of the language.
• We can control the instruction execution using two types of
instructions, i.e., compare and jump instructions. Table 2.8 shows them.
• Control Structures
2.6.1 Conditional statements
2.6.2 Repetition statements

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 2.6 Control Structures
• Table 2.8 Compare and Jump instructions.

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 2.6.1 Conditional Statements
• We can combine the compare and jump instructions in order to make
the program work in the same manner as the condition statements (if-
else).
• Example:

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 2.6.1 Conditional Statements
• Example 2.5 Write a function in assembly that prints “>100” when an
integer parameter is greater than 100, otherwise it prints “<=100”.

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 2.6.1 Conditional Statements
• Example 2.5 (cont.)

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 2.6.2 Repetition Statements
• The compare and jump instructions can also be used to form repetition
structures.
• Example 2.7 Write a function sumN that calculates 1+2+…+n where n is
an argument.

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 2.6.2 Repetition Statements
• Example 2.7 Write a function sumN that calculates 1+2+…+n where n is
an argument.

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 2.7 Arrays
• An array is sequence of values of the same data type.
• It is stored in the memory as a consecutive block of memory.
• For example, a C statement long A[5]; defines an array which is
composed of 5 elements. Each element is a 64-bit integer.

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 2.7.1 Accessing Array Elements
• Since each array is a consecutive block of data, we can calculate the
address of an element in the array from:
1. The starting address of the array,
2. The size in bytes of an element, and
3. The element index that we want to access.

• For example, suppose the starting address of the array A is s. The

element A[3] can be found at s+8*3 = s+24.

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 2.7.1 Accessing Array Elements
• When we call a function in C and pass an array as an argument, the
starting address is passed to the function.
• We can use the starting address to compute the addresses of elements.
• Example 2.8 Write a function sumArr(A,n) that computes the sum of
the n elements in the array A.

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 2.7.1 Accessing Array Elements
• When we call a function in C and pass an array as an argument, the
starting address is passed to the function.
• We can use the starting address to compute the addresses of elements.
• Example 2.8 Write a function sumArr(A,n) that computes the sum of
the n elements in the array A.

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2.8 Example of Assembly Programs

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 Exercise
• Exercise 2.3 Implement a function add1000(a) that returns a + 1000.
The function will be used by the following C program.

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 Exercise
• Example 2.4 Implement a function ldgt(a) that returns the last digit of
a.

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 Exercise
• Exercise 2.4 Implement a function exercise2(a,b,c) that returns
c+2*(a+b)-(b+2*c) used by the following C program.

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 Exercise
• Exercise 2.5 Implement a function exercise3(a,b) that returns (a+b)%2
used by the following C program.

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 Exercise
• Exercise 2.6 Implement a function exercise4(a) that returns the second
last digit of a.

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 Exercise
• Example 2.6 Write a function in assembly that checks and displays if an
integer parameter is odd or even.

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 Exercise
• Exercise 2.7 Write a function maxoftwo(a,b) that returns the maximum
value between a and b.

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 References
1. C.Nattee, Lecture Note of CSS224 Computer Architectures, 2017.
2. R.E. Bryant and D.R. O’Halloron, Computer Systems: A Programmer’s
Perspective, 2nd edition, 2011, Pearson/Prentice Hall, ISBN:978-0-13-
610804-7.

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