ECE 310

Microprocessors and
Microcontrollers
Introduction to Microprocessors (1)
Mohammed Sharaf Sayed
[email protected]
 Lecture Outline

• Computer and Its Organization:

 Input System  Instruction Execution
 Output System  Clock
 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)  Instruction Format
 Memory  Addressing Modes
 Control System  Instruction Set
• Programming System
 Machine Language Program
 Assembly Language Program
 Assembler Directives
 Compilers
 Operating Systems
2
 Computer Organization

• The computer organization proposed by von

Neumann envisages that the binary number
system to be used for both data and instructions.
3
 Input & Output

• The role of the input system is to enter instructions (for

the operation to be performed) and the related data
into the computer.

• The output system presents to the user the

information inside the computer.

4
 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)

• The ALU performs arithmetic and logic functions on

the data. The basic arithmetic functions are add,
subtract, multiply, and divide. The logic functions are
AND, OR, NAND, NOR, NOT, EX-OR, etc.
• A computer which can store N-bit data and compute
on N-bit data will have N-bit registers.
5
 Memory

• Memory stores the bulk of data, instructions and

results.

• The basic unit of memory is called word.

• A word can store one unit of data.

• The maximum number of bits of data that a word can

store is called its length.

• Computer memories are of two classes—main memory

and secondary or back-up memory.
6
 Memory

• The main memory is a Random Access Memory (RAM)

in which any particular word can be read or written at
random.

• The time taken to read/write different data from/to

different locations in this class of memory remains the
same.

• Each memory location is associated with an address,

which is used to access that particular location.

7
 Memory

• The MAR contains the address where the read/write

operation is to be performed.
• The MBR contains data to be written or data after the
8
read operation.
 Memory

• Nowadays, main memory is fabricated with

semiconductor (MOS) technology.
• MOS memories are extremely compact and take much
less time for read/write.
• The two principal types of MOS memory chips are
EPROM—Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
and RAM.
• Secondary memories are used for large data storage.
They are nonvolatile, semi-random or sequential
access and have low cost per bit.
9
 Control Unit

• The control unit is the central nervous system of the

computer. It reads an instruction from memory and
generates control signals for the execution of that
instruction.

• The control signals initiate the required actions in ALU,

memory and I/O devices.
10
 Control Unit

• The program counter contains the

address of the current instruction
in memory and is incremented
during the instruction execution.

• The Instruction Register stores the

instruction read from memory.

• The instruction received by the

control unit is a bit pattern and it
should be decoded to generate a
particular sequence of control
signals.
11
 Control Unit (Stack)

• The control unit maintains a stack in CPU or main

memory.
• The stack is also called Last-In First-Out (LIFO) queue.
• The Stack Pointer (SP) points to the next available
memory location in the stack
• Two operations can be performed on stack; PUSH
(write data into stack) and POP (read data from stack).

12
 Control Unit (Stack)

• These IN and OUT buffers are normally some registers

in the ALU.
• Example:
– The data (Z) to be pushed in the stack should be stored in IN
buffer first.
– After the POP operation has been completed, data taken out
from top of the stack will appear in OUT buffer.
13
 Instruction Execution

• The instruction execution includes two basic steps:

– Instruction fetch, i.e. reading of instruction from
memory.
– Instruction execute, i.e. generation of control signals.
• These two steps are called fetch cycle and execute
14 cycle.
 Clock

• All operations in the computer are controlled by clock signals.

The clock signal provides the basic timing signal for computer
operations.
• All the actions in the computer are initiated either by the leading
edge or by trailing edge of the clock and take a fixed number of
15 clock periods to complete.
 Clock

• Every instruction is executed in a fixed number of clock

cycles.
• The clock controls the generation of all control signals
in the computer.

16
 Instruction Format

• An instruction specifies the type of operation, the

location of operands and the location where the result
of the operation is to be stored.
• The operation code specifies the operation to be
performed.
17
 Instruction Format

• The operand address specifies the location of operand.

• In case of operands located in memory, their addresses
may be specified directly or through an indirect way
based on the Addressing Mode.
• The simplest type of instruction format contains only
the Operation Code but no operand address or
addressing mode bits such as Halt instruction.
• In many operations like Decimal Adjust Accumulator,
Set Carry, Clear Carry, the location of the operand is
prefixed and therefore not mentioned.
18
 Instruction Format

• The single operand instruction format specifies the

Operation Code, the Addressing Mode and the
Operand Address such as Increment or Decrement
content of register/memory location.
• There are also types of instructions where the location
of the other operand and the result is prefixed such as
IN port and OUT port.

19
 Addressing Modes

• The addressing mode specifies:

Where the operand is located
How to reach the operand location
• The operand may be located as:
Immediate data as part of the instruction
Data stored in one of the registers
Data stored in memory

20
 Addressing Modes

• Immediate addressing mode

MOV BX, 97F0H
BX  the value 97F0H
• Register addressing mode
MOV AX, BX
AX  the value in BX

21
 Addressing Modes

• Memory addressing modes

Direct addressing mode
MOV AX, [2345H]
AX  the word in location 2345H
MOV [2345H], BX
The location whose address is 2345H  BX
Indirect addressing mode
MOV AL, [BX]
AL  the word in the location whose address is in BX
MOV [BX], CL
The location whose address is in BX  CL
22
 Addressing Modes

Indexed addressing mode

Base plus Index Indirect Addressing mode
 The base of the array is specified in a register called
Base register.
 The index or distance of the element from the base of
the array to be accessed is specified in a register called
Index register.
 The sum of the contents of Base register and Index
register is the address of the operand in memory.
MOV [BX + DI], AL
The location whose address is in BX + DI  AL
23
 Addressing Modes

Indexed addressing mode

Base plus Index Register Relative Addressing mode,
 Base register contains the base address of the array.
 Index register contains the increment from base to the
row where the data is stored.
 Displacement mentioned in the instruction or in a
separate register is the displacement of the element
from the start of the row.
MOV [BX + DI + 4], AL
The location whose address is in BX + DI + 4  AL

24
 Addressing Modes

25
 Instruction Set

• Instructions may be divided into the following five

general groups:
– Data transfer group
– Arithmetic and logic group
– String manipulation group
– Program control group
– Execution control group

26
 Instruction Set

• Data transfer group; this group of instructions deals

with the movement of data in byte/word/bit form
between:
 Register to Register
 Memory to Register
 Register to Memory
 Immediate data to Register
 Immediate data to Memory
 Exchange of data between two registers
Example: MOV BX, CX

27
 Instruction Set

• Arithmetic and logic group; this group of

instructions includes:
 Arithmetic operations
Example: ADD AL, BL
 Logical operations
Example: XOR AL, BL

28
 Instruction Set

• String manipulation group; this group of instructions

includes:
 Loading/storing of byte/word string elements.
 Movement of byte/word string elements to
another memory location.
 Comparison of two byte/word string elements.
Example: MOVSB
Move the string byte from DS:SI to ES:DI in memory

29
 Instruction Set

• Program control group; this group of instructions

includes:
 Conditional/Unconditional branch
 Conditional/Unconditional call to subroutine
 Return from subroutine
 Restart
Example: JNZ Label
Jump to Label if zero flag is not set.

30
 Instruction Set

• Execution control group; this group of instructions

includes:
 No operation
 Halt
 Enabling/Disabling Interrupts
 Initialization of control/function registers for
interrupts, on chip timer/counter (if any)
Example: HLT
Program halts

31
 Programming System

• Machine Language Program

 Machine instructions are the instructions which are
decoded directly by the control unit and executed.
 And, the language is called machine language.
 Machine language consists of different binary numbers
(bit patterns) for different operations.
 To perform a particular action by computer, one would
need to write a number of instructions, each performing a
step in calculation or action.
 This combination of instructions is called a program.

32
 Programming System

• Example:
0100.....0111.....(Code for MOV B, A)......;....Move
Accumulator content to B register
• For each instruction:
 Instruction will be loaded
 Instruction will be decoded
 Control signals will be generated.
• It is very difficult to write programs in machine
language.  A single bit error in any instruction will
produce undesirable results.
33
 Programming System

• Assembly Language Program

 In assembly language, each machine instruction
has been replaced by a mnemonic which signifies
the operation
 Examples:
ADD (for addition)
SUB (for subtraction)
LOAD (for memory read)
STORE (for memory write)
34
 Programming System

• Assembler is a software program which translates

assembly programs to their machine level programs.
• In the memory, the program will be stored as a
machine level program.

35
 Programming System

 Example (Intel 8085 assembly):

ORG.............2000H (Hex)
LDA.............2400H
MOV.............B, A
LDA.............2401H
ADD.............B
STA.............2402H
END
36
 Programming System

• Assembler Directives
 Every assembler will have Pseudo Instructions or
directives to help the programmer to communicate
the program requirements to the assembler.
 Examples:
ORG 2000H  indicates to Intel 8085 assembler that the
following instructions are to be loaded, starting from
memory location 2000 Hex.
END  indicates to Intel 8085 assembler that the program
has ended and thus no further translation of assembly
instructions to machine instructions is required.

37
 Programming System

• Compilers
 With the increase of computer programs
complexity, assembly language programs became
very lengthy and unmanageable.
 This leads to the development of high-level
languages like BASIC, FORTRAN, C etc.
 Compilers translate high-level languages programs
into machine level language which can then be
directly executed by computers.

38
 Programming System

• Operating Systems
 An operating system (OS) is system software that
manages computer hardware, software resources,
and provides common services for computer
programs.
 It allocates computer resources to the user
programs.

39
 Lecture Summary

• We have discussed the following topics:

• Computer and Its Organization:
 Input System  Instruction Execution
 Output System  Clock
 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)  Instruction Format
 Memory  Addressing Modes
 Control System  Instruction Set
• Programming System
 Machine Language Program
 Assembly Language Program
 Assembler Directives
 Compilers
40  Operating Systems
 Mohammed Sharaf Sayed
[email protected]