Control Unit Design

Prepared by:
Prof. Sanjay Naravadkar
Block Diagram of Hardwired Control Unit and operation

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Detailed Block Diagram of Hardwired Control Unit

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Concept of Microprogrammed Control Unit

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Microprogrammed Control Unit and it's operation

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State Table method of Hardwired Control Unit design
Each cell of the State Table contains:
Generic State Table • Input formed using actual input (I) & status
bit (S). (This is collectively called as the
'Composite input')
• Expected output (Z) for this Composite input
• Output (Z) defines the set of control signals
to be activated.
Advantage: Simple method
Drawbacks:
1. Used only for small processor designs
2. Needs memory space for the storage of
the state table
3. Generation of control signal is slower as
state table cell is to be read from memory

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Delay Element method of Hardwired Control Unit design
Generic block diagram • Normally, each Delay Element generates fixed time
delay (say Delay = T)
• Junction outputs after delay are connected to “OR
gates” depending on the activation of control
signals
• After 1st Delay Element, junction O/P is activated
at time “t = T”, generating control signals as
C1 C2 C3 = 111
• After 2nd Delay Element (time t = 2T), the control
signals generated as C1 C2 C3 = 110
Advantages:
Faster operation
Drawback:
Reconnection & restructuring required to design new
instructions in the CPU (design becomes complex)
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Micro-instruction format in μ-programmed Control Unit:
Horizontal Microinstructions: Vertical Microinstructions:
• Each bit of the • Microinstruction has one or more encoded
microinstruction gives control fields
individual control signal
• Such encoded control fields must be decoded
to get all the individual control signals
• Short formats
• Limited parallelism
• Longer formats • Considerable
• High degree of parallelism encoding of the
• No encoding (or little control information
encoding of control
information)

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Microinstruction sequencing & execution
Execution of all microinstructions of particular machine instruction in a proper
sequence is called as microinstruction sequencing & execution.

Two methods adopted for Microinstruction sequencing & execution:

1. Microinstruction with address of next microinstruction embedded
• Leads to lengthy microinstructions, hence large Control Memory size
• Simple but costly implementation
• Speedy execution of the microinstructions (and hence machine instruction)

2. Using Microprogram Counter (μPC)

• μPC sequnces the microinstructions automatically (like PC in machine
instructions)
• Care to be taken in conditional branching within microprograms
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Comparison of Hardwired with Microprogramed C
Hardwired Control Unit Microprogrammed Control Unit
• Control signals are generated using • Control signals are generated by
internal hardware of the CPU reading microinstructions from
Control memory (Control ROM)
• Faster operation • Slower operation
• Addition of new instruction is very • Addition of new instruction is much
difficult, as it needs to restructure simpler (by adding microprogram in
entire H/W
the Control ROM)
• Lesser instructions are implemented
• More instructions can be designed
• Used in RISC processors
• Methods to implement are: State • Used in CISC processors
Table, Delay element, Sequence • One very common method to
counter, PLA based designs implement is “Wilke's design”
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