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Module 5 - CPU Design

Lecture 1 - Introduction to CPU

The operation or task that must perform by CPU is:

• Fetch Instruction: The CPU reads an instruction from memory.

• Interpret Instruction: The instruction is decoded to determine what action is
required.
• Fetch Data: The execution of an instruction may require reading data from
memory or I/O module.
• Process data: The execution of an instruction may require performing some
arithmetic or logical operation on data.
• Write data: The result of an execution may require writing data to memory or an
I/O module.

To do these tasks, it should be clear that the CPU needs to store some data temporarily. It must
remember the location of the last instruction so that it can know where to get the next
instruction. It needs to store instructions and data temporarily while an instruction is beign
executed. In other words, the CPU needs a small internal memory. These storage location are
generally referred as registers.

The major components of the CPU are an arithmetic and logic unit (ALU) and a control unit
(CU). The ALU does the actual computation or processing of data. The CU controls the
movement of data and instruction into and out of the CPU and controls the operation of the
ALU.

The CPU is connected to the rest of the system through system bus. Through system bus, data
or information gets transferred between the CPU and the other component of the system. The
system bus may have three components:

Data Bus:
Data bus is used to transfer the data between main memory and CPU.

Address Bus:
Address bus is used to access a particular memory location by putting the address of the
memory location.

Control Bus:
Control bus is used to provide the different control signal generated by CPU to different part of
the system. As for example, memory read is a signal generated by CPU to indicate that a

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memory read operation has to be performed. Through control bus this signal is transferred to
memory module to indicate the required operation.

There are three basic components of CPU: register bank, ALU and Control Unit. There are
several data movements between these units and for that an internal CPU bus is used. Internal
CPU bus is needed to transfer data between the various registers and the ALU.

The internal organization of CPU in more abstract level is shown in the Figure 5.1 and Figure
5.2.

Figure 5.1: CPU with the system Bus

Figure 5.2: Internal Structure of the CPU

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Register Organization

A computer system employs a memory hierarchy. At the highest level of hierarchy, memory is
faster, smaller and more expensive. Within the CPU, there is a set of registers which can be
treated as a memory in the highest level of hierarchy. The registers in the CPU can be
categorized into two groups:

• User-visible registers: These enable the machine - or assembly-language

programmer to minimize main memory reference by optimizing use of registers.

• Control and status registers: These are used by the control unit to control the
operation of the CPU. Operating system programs may also use these in
privileged mode to control the execution of program.

User-visible Registers:

The user-visible registers can be categorized as follows:

 General Purpose Registers

 Data Registers
 Address Registers
 Condition Codes

General-purpose registers can be assigned to a variety of functions by the programmer. In some

cases, general- purpose registers can be used for addressing functions (e.g., register indirect,
displacement).

In other cases, there is a partial or clean separation between data registers and address
registers.

Data registers may be used to hold only data and cannot be employed in the calculation of an
operand address.

Address registers may be somewhat general purpose, or they may be devoted to a particular
addressing mode. Examples include the following:

• Segment pointer: In a machine with segment addressing, a segment register

holds the address of the base of the segment. There may be multiple registers,
one for the code segment and one for the data segment.
• Index registers: These are used for indexed addressing and may be autoindexed.
• Stack pointer: If there is user visible stack addressing, then typically the stack is
in memory and there is a dedicated register that points to the top of the stack.

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Condition Codes (also referred to as flags) are bits set by the CPU hardware as the result of the
operations. For example, an arithmatic operation may produce a positive, negative, zero or
overflow result. In addition to the result itself beign stored in a register or memory, a condition
code is also set. The code may be subsequently be tested as part of a condition branch
operation. Condition code bits are collected into one or more registers.

Register Organization

There are a variety of CPU registers that are employed to control the operation of the CPU.
Most of these, on most machines, are not visible to the user.

Different machines will have different register organizations and use different terminology. We
will discuss here the most commonly used registers which are part of most of the machines.

Four registers are essential to instruction execution:

Program Counter (PC): Contains the address of an instruction to be fetched. Typically, the PC is
updated by the CPU after each instruction fetched so that it always points to the next
instruction to be executed. A branch or skip instruction will also modify the contents of the PC.

Instruction Register (IR): Contains the instruction most recently fetched. The fetched
instruction is loaded into an IR, where the opcode and operand specifiers are analyzed.

Memory Address Register (MAR): Containts the address of a location of main memory from
where information has to be fetched or information has to be stored. Contents of MAR is
directly connected to the address bus.

Memory Buffer Register (MBR): Contains a word of data to be written to memory or the word
most recently read. Contents of MBR is directly connected to the data bus.It is also known as
Memory Data Register (MDR).

Apart from these specific register, we may have some temporary registers which are not visible
to the user. As such, there may be temporary buffering registers at the boundary to the ALU;
these registers serve as input and output registers for the ALU and exchange data with the MBR
and user visible registers.

Processor Status Word

All CPU designs include a register or set of registers, often known as the processor status word
(PSW), that contains status information. The PSW typically contains condition codes plus other
status information. Common fields or flags include the following:

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• Sign: Contains the sign bit of the result of the last arithmatic operation.
• Zero: Set when the result is zero.
• Carry: Set if an operation resulted in a carry (addition) into or borrow
(subtraction) out of a high order bit.
• Equal: Set if a logical campare result is equal.
• Overflow: Used to indicate arithmatic overflow.
• Interrupt enable/disable: Used to enable or disable interrupts.
• Supervisor: Indicate whether the CPU is executing in supervisor or user mode.
Certain privileged instructions can be executed only in supervisor mode, and
certain areas of memory can be accessed only in supervisor mode.

Apart from these, a number of other registers related to status and control might be found in a
particular CPU design. In addition to the PSW, there may be a pointer to a block of memory
containing additional status information (e.g. process control blocks).

Concept of Program Execution

The instructions constituting a program to be executed by a computer are loaded in sequential

locations in its main memory. To execute this program, the CPU fetches one instruction at a
time and performs the functions specified. Instructions are fetched from successive memory
locations until the execution of a branch or a jump instruction.

The CPU keeps track of the address of the memory location where the next instruction is
located through the use of a dedicated CPU register, referred to as the program counter (PC).
After fetching an instruction, the contents of the PC are updated to point at the next instruction
in sequence.

For simplicity, let us assume that each instruction occupies one memory word. Therefore,
execution of one instruction requires the following three steps to be performed by the CPU:

1. Fetch the contents of the memory location pointed at by the PC. The contents of
this location are interpreted as an instruction to be executed. Hence, they are
stored in the instruction register (IR). Symbolically this can be written as:
IR = [ [PC] ]

2. Increment the contents of the PC by 1.

PC = [PC] + 1

3. Carry out the actions specified by the instruction stored in the IR.

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The first two steps are usually referred to as the fetch phase and the step 3 is known as the
execution phase. Fetch cycle basically involves read the next instruction from the memory into
the CPU and along with that update the contents of the program counter. In the execution
phase, it interprets the opcode and perform the indicated operation. The instruction fetch and
execution phase together known as instruction cycle. The basic instruction cycle is shown in the
Figure 5.3.

Figure 5.3: Basic Instruction cycle

In cases, where an instruction occupies more than one word, step 1 and step 2 can be repeated
as many times as necessary to fetch the complete instruction. In these cases, the execution of a
instruction may involve one or more operands in memory, each of which requires a memory
access. Further, if indirect addressing is used, then additional memory access are required.

The fetched instruction is loaded into the instruction register. The instruction contains bits that
specify the action to be performed by the processor. The processor interprets the instruction
and performs the required action. In general, the actions fall into four categories:

• Processor-memory: Data may be transferred from processor to memory or from

memory to processor.

• Processor-I/O: Data may be transferred to or from a peripheral device by

transferring between the processor and an I/O module.

• Data processing: The processor may perform some arithmetic or logic operation
on data.

• Control: An instruction may specify that the sequence of execution be altered.

The main line of activity consists of alternating instruction fetch and instruction execution
activities. After an instruction is fetched, it is examined to determine if any indirect addressing
is involved. If so, the required operands are fetched using indirect addressing.

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The execution cycle of a particular instruction may involve more than one reference to
memory. Also, instead of memory references, an instruction may specify an I/O operation. With
these additional considerations the basic instruction cycle can be expanded with more details
view in the Figure 5.4. The figure is in the form of a state diagram.

Figure 5.4: Instruction cycle state diagram.

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Lecture 2- Processor Organization

There are several components inside a CPU, namely, ALU, control unit, general purpose
register, Instruction registers etc. Now we will see how these components are organized inside
CPU. There are several ways to place these components and interconnect them. One such
organization is shown in the Figure 5.6.

In this case, the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), and all CPU registers are connected via a single
common bus. This bus is internal to CPU and this internal bus is used to transfer the
information between different components of the CPU. This organization is termed as single
bus organization, since only one internal bus is used for transferring of information between
different components of CPU. We have external bus or buses to CPU also to connect the CPU
with the memory module and I/O devices. The external memory bus is also shown in the Figure
5.6 connected to the CPU via the memory data and address register MDR and MAR.

The number and function of registers R0 to R(n-1) vary considerably from one machine to
another. They may be given for general-purpose for the use of the programmer. Alternatively,
some of them may be dedicated as special-purpose registers, such as index register or stack
pointers.

In this organization, two registers, namely Y and Z are used which are transparent to the user.
Programmer can not directly access these two registers. These are used as input and output
buffer to the ALU which will be used in ALU operations. They will be used by CPU as temporary
storage for some instructions.

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Figure 5.6: Single bus organization of the data path inside the CPU

For the execution of an instruction, we need to perform an instruction cycle. An instruction

cycle consists of two phase,

• Fetch cycle and

• Execution cycle.

Most of the operation of a CPU can be carried out by performing one or more of the following
functions in some pre-specified sequence:

1. Fetch the contents of a given memory location and load them into a CPU
register.
2. Store a word of data from a CPU register into a given memory location.
3. Transfer a word of data from one CPU register to another or to the ALU.
4. Perform an arithmetic or logic operation, and store the result in a CPU register.

Now we will examine the way in which each of the above functions is implemented in a
computer. Fetching a Word from Memory:

Information is stored in memory location indentified by their address. To fetch a word from
memory, the CPU has to specify the address of the memory location where this information is

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stored and request a Read operation. The information may include both, the data for an
operation or the instruction of a program which is available in main memory.

To perform a memory fetch operation, we need to complete the following tasks:

The CPU transfers the address of the required memory location to the Memory Address
Register (MAR).

The MAR is connected to the memory address line of the memory bus, hence the address of the
required word is transfered to the main memory.

Next, CPU uses the control lines of the memory bus to indicate that a Read operation is
initiated. After issuing this request, the CPU waits until it receives an answer from the memory,
indicating that the requested operation has been completed.

This is accomplished by another control signal of memory bus known as Memory-Function-

Complete (MFC).

The memory set this signal to 1 to indicate that the contents of the specified memory location
are available in memory data bus.

As soon as MFC signal is set to 1, the information available in the data bus is loaded into the
Memory Data Register (MDR) and this is available for use inside the CPU.

As an example, assume that the address of the memory location to be accessed is kept in
register R2 and that the memory contents to be loaded into register R1. This is done by the
following sequence of operations:

1. MAR [R2] 2. Read

3. Wait for MFC signal 4. R1 [MDR]

The time required for step 3 depends on the speed of the memory unit. In general, the time
required to access a word from the memory is longer than the time required to perform any
operation within the CPU.

The scheme that is used here to transfer data from one device (memory) to another device
(CPU) is referred to as an asynchronous transfer.

This asynchronous transfer enables transfer of data between two independent devices that
have different speeds of operation. The data transfer is synchronized with the help of some

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control signals. In this example, Read request and MFC signal are doing the synchronization
task.

An alternative scheme is synchronous transfer. In this case all the devices are controlled by a
common clock pulse (continuously running clock of a fixed frequency). These pulses provide
common timing signal to the CPU and the main memory. A memory operation is completed
during every clock period. Though the synchronous data transfer scheme leads to a simpler
implementation, it is difficult to accommodate devices with widely varying speed. In such
cases, the duration of the clock pulse will be synchronized to the slowest device. It reduces the
speed of all the devices to the slowest one.

Storing a word into memory

The procedure of writing a word into memory location is similar to that for reading one from
memory. The only difference is that the data word to be written is first loaded into the MDR,
the write command is issued.

As an example, assumes that the data word to be stored in the memory is in register R1 and
that the memory address is in register R2. The memory write operation requires the following
sequence:

1. MAR [R2]
2. MDR [R1]
3. Write
4. Wait for MFC

- In this case step 1 and step 2 are independent and so they can be carried out in any order. In
fact, step 1 and 2 can be carried out simultaneously, if this is allowed by the architecture, that
is, if these two data transfers (memory address and data) do not use the same data path.

In case of both memories read and memory write operation, the total time duration depends
on wait for the MFC signal, which depends on the speed of the memory module.

There is a scope to improve the performance of the CPU, if CPU is allowed to perform some
other operation while waiting for MFC signal. During the period, CPU can perform some other
instructions which do not require the use of MAR and MDR.

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Register Transfer Operation

Register transfer operations enable data transfer between various blocks connected to the
common bus of CPU. We have several registers inside CPU and it is needed to transfer
information from one register another. As for example during memory write operation data
from appropriate register must be moved to MDR.

Since the input output lines of all the register are connected to the common internal bus, we
need appropriate input output gating. The input and output gates for register Ri are controlled
by the signal Ri in and Ri out respectively.

Thus, when Ri in set to 1 the data available in the common bus is loaded into Ri . Similarly when,
Ri out is set to 1, the contents of the register Ri are placed on the bus. To transfer data from one
register to other register, we need to generate the appropriate register gating signal.

For example, to transfer the contents of register R1 to register R2, the following actions are
needed:

• Enable the output gate of register R1 by setting R1out to 1.

-- This places the contents of R1 on the CPU bus.
• Enable the input gate of register R2 by setting R2 in to 1.
-- This loads data from the CPU bus into the register R2.

Performing the arithmetic or logic operation:

o Generally ALU is used inside CPU to perform arithmetic and logic operation. ALU
is a combinational logic circuit which does not have any internal storage.

Therefore, to perform any arithmetic or logic operation (say binary operation) both the input
should be made available at the two inputs of the ALU simultaneously. Once both the inputs
are available then appropriate signal is generated to perform the required operation.

We may have to use temporary storage (register) to carry out the operation in ALU.

The sequence of operations that have to carry out to perform one ALU operation depends on
the organization of the CPU. Consider an organization in which one of the operand of ALU is
stored in some temporary register Y and other operand is directly taken from CPU internal bus.
The result of the ALU operation is stored in another temporary register Z. This organization is
shown in the Figure 5.7.

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Figure 5.7 : Organization for Arithmetic & Logic Operation.

Therefore, the sequence of operations to add the contents of register R1 to register R2 and store
the result in register R3 should be as follows:

1. R1out, Yin
2. R2out, Add, Zin
3. Zout, R3in

In step 2 of this sequence, the contents of register R2 are gated to the bus, hence to input –B of
the ALU which is directly connected to the bus. The contents of register Y are always available
at input A of ALU. The function performed by the ALU depends on the signal applied to the ALU
control lines. In this example, the Add control line of ALU is set to 1, which indicate the addition
operation and the output of ALU is the sum of the two numbers at input A and B. The sum is
loaded into register Z, since the input gate is enabled (Zin ). In step 3, the contents of register Z
are transferred to the destination register R3.

Question: Whether step 2 and step 3 can be carried out simultaneously.

Multiple Bus Organization

Till now we have considered only one internal bus of CPU. The single-bus organization, which is
only one of the possibilities for interconnecting different building blocks of CPU.

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An alternative structure is the two bus structure, where two different internal buses are used
in CPU. All register outputs are connected to bus A, add all registered inputs are connected to
bus B.

There is a special arrangement to transfer the data from one bus to the other bus. The buses
are connected through the bus tie G. When this tie is enabled data on bus A is transfer to bus B.
When G is disabled, the two buses are electrically isolated.

Since two buses are used here the temporary register Z is not required here which is used in
single bus organization to store the result of ALU. Now result can be directly transferred to bus
B, since one of the inputs is in bus A. With the bus tie disabled, the result can directly be
transferred to destination register. A simple two bus structure is shown in the Figure 5.8.

For example, for the operation, [R3] [R1] + [R2] can now be performed as

1. R1out, Genable, Yin

2. R2out, Add, ALUout, R3in

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Figure 5.8 : Two bus structure

In this case source register R2 and destination register R3 has to be different, because the two
operations R2in and R2out can not be performed together. If the registers are made of simple
latches then only we have the restriction.

We may have another CPU organization, where three internal CPU buses are used. In this
organization each bus connected to only one output and number of inputs. The elimination of
the need for connecting more than one output to the same bus leads to faster bus transfer and
simple control.

A simple three-bus organization is shown in the figure 5.9.

A multiplexer is provided at the input to each of the two working registers A and B, which allow
them to be loaded from either the input data bus or the register data bus.

In the diagram, a possible interconnection of three-bus organization is presented, there may be

different interconnections possible.

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In this three bus organization, we are keeping two input data buses instead of one that is used
in two bus organization.

Two separate input data buses are present – one is for external data transfer, i.e. retrieving
from memory and the second one is for internal data transfer that is transferring data from
general purpose register to other building block inside the CPU.

Like two bus organization, we can use bus tie to connect the input bus and output bus. When
the bus tie is enable, the information that is present in input bus is directly transferred to
output bus. We may use one bus tie G1 between input data bus and ALU output bus and
another bus tie G2 between register data bus and ALU output data bus.

Figure 5.9 : Three Bus structure

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Lecture 3- Execution of a Complete Instructions

We have discussed about four different types of basic operations:

 Fetch information from memory to CPU

 Store information to CPU register to memory
 Transfer of data between CPU registers.
 Perform arithmetic or logic operation and store the result in CPU
registers.

To execute a complete instruction we need to take help of these basic operations and we need
to execute these operation in some particular order.

As for example, consider the instruction : "Add contents of memory location NUM to the
contents of register R1 and store the result in register R1." For simplicity, assume that the
address NUM is given explicitly in the address field of the instruction .That is, in this instruction,
direct addressing mode is used.
Execution of this instruction requires the following action :

1. Fetch instruction
2. Fetch first operand (Contents of memory location pointed at by the
address field of the instruction)
3. Perform addition
4. Load the result into R1.

Following sequence of control steps are required to implement the above operation for the
single-bus architecture that we have discussed in earlier section.

Steps Actions

1. PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set carry -in to ALU, Add, Zin

2. Zout, PCin, Wait For MFC

3. MDRout, Irin

4. Address-field- of-IRout, MARin, Read

5. R1out, Yin, Wait for MFC

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6. MDRout, Add, Zin

7. Zout, R1in

8. END

Instructruction execution proceeds as follows:

In Step1:

The instruction fetch operation is initiated by loading the contents of the PC into the
MAR and sending a read request to memory.

To perform this task first of all the contents of PC have to be brought to internal bus and then it
is loaded to MAR.To perform this task control circuit has to generate the PCout signal and MARin
signal.

After issuing the read signal, CPU has to wait for some time to get the MFC signal. During that
time PC is updated by 1 through the use of the ALU. This is accomplished by setting one of the
inputs to the ALU (Register Y) to 0 and the other input is available in bus which is current value
of PC.

At the same time, the carry-in to the ALU is set to 1 and an add operation is specified.

In Step 2:

The updated value is moved from register Z back into the PC. Step 2 is initiated immediately
after issuing the memory Read request without waiting for completion of memory function.
This is possible, because step 2 does not use the memory bus and its execution does not
depend on the memory read operation.

In Step 3:

Step3 has been delayed until the MFC is received. Once MFC is received, the word fetched from
the memory is transfered to IR (Instruction Register), Because it is an instruction. Step 1
through 3 constitute the instruction fetch phase of the control sequence.

The instruction fetch portion is same for all instructions. Next step onwards, instruction
execution phase takes place.

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As soon as the IR is loaded with instruction, the instruction decoding circuits interprets its
contents. This enables the control circuitry to choose the appropriate signals for the remainder
of the control sequence, step 4 to 8, which we referred to as the execution phase. To design the
control sequence of execution phase, it is needed to have the knowledge of the internal
structure and instruction format of the PU. Secondly , the length of instruction phase is
different for different instruction.

In this example , we have assumed the following instruction format :

opcode M R

i.e., opcode: Operation Code

M: Memory address for source
R: Register address for source/destination

In Step 5 :

The destination field of IR, which contains the address of the register R1, is used to transfer the
contents of register R1 to register Y and wait for Memory function Complete. When the read
operation is completed, the memory operand is available in MDR.

In Step 6 :

The result of addition operation is performed in this step.

In Step 7:

The result of addition operation is transferred from temporary register Z to the destination
register R1 in this step.

In step 8 :

It indicates the end of the execution of the instruction by generating End signal. This indicates
completion of execution of the current instruction and causes a new fetch cycle to be started by
going back to step 1.

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Branching

With the help of branching instruction, the control of the execution of the program is
transferred from one particular position to some other position, due to which the sequence
flow of control is broken. Branching is accomplished by replacing the current contents of the PC
by the branch address, that is, the address of the instruction to which branching is required.

Consider a branch instruction in which branch address is obtained by adding an offset X, which
is given in the address field of the branch instruction, to the current value of PC.

Consider the following unconditional branch instruction

JUMP X

i.e., the format is

op- code offset of jump

The control sequence that enables execution of an unconditional branch instruction using the
single - bus organization is as follows:

Steps Actions

1. PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set Carry-in to ALU, Add ,Zin

2. Zout, PCin, Wait for MFC

3. MDRout, IRin

4. PCout, Yin

5. Address field-of IRout, Add, Zin

6. Zout, PCin

7. End

Execution starts as usual with the fetch phase, ending with the instruction being loaded into the
IR in step 3. To execute the branch instruction, the execution phase starts in step 4.

In Step 4

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The contents of the PC are transferred to register Y.

In Step 5

The offset X of the instruction is gated to the bus and the addition operation is performed.

In Step 6

The result of the addition, which represents the branch address is loaded into the PC.

In Step 7

It generates the End signal to indicate the end of execution of the current instruction.

Consider now the conditional branch instruction instead of unconditional branch. In this case,
we need to check the status of the condition codes, between step 3 and 4. i.e., before adding
the offset value to the PC contents.

For example, if the instruction decoding circuitry interprets the contents of the IR as a branch
on Negative (BRN) instruction, the control unit proceeds as follows: First the condition code
register is checked. If bit N (negative) is equal to 1, the control unit proceeds with step 4
through step 7 of control sequence of unconditional branch instruction.

If, on the other hand, N is equal to 0, and End signal is issued.

This in effect, terminates execution of the branch instruction and causes the instruction
immediately following in the branch instruction to be fetched when a new fetch operation is
performed.

Therefore, the control sequence for the conditional branch instruction BRN can be obtained
from the control sequence of an unconditional branch instruction by replacing the step 4 by

4. If then End
If N then PCout, yin

Most commonly need conditional branch instructions are

BNZ : Branch on not Zero BNP : Branch on not Positive

BO : Branch on overflow BZ : Branch on positive

BP : Branch on Positive

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Lecture 4 - Design of Control Unit

To execute an instruction, the control unit of the CPU must generate the required control signal
in the proper sequence. As for example, during the fetch phase, CPU has to generate PCout
signal along with other required signal in the first clock pulse. In the second clock pulse CPU has
to generate PCin signal along with other required signals. So, during fetch phase, the proper
sequence for generating the signal to retrieve from and store to PC is PCout and PCin.

To generate the control signal in proper sequence, a wide variety of techniques exist. Most of
these techniques, however, fall into one of the two categories,

Hardwired Control

Microprogrammed Control.

Hardwired Control

In this hardwired control techniques, the control signals are generated by means of hardwired
circuit. The main objective of control unit is to generate the control signal in proper sequence.

Consider the sequence of control signal required to execute the ADD instruction that is
explained in previous lecture. It is obvious that eight non-overlapping time slots are required
for proper execution of the instruction represented by this sequence.

Each time slot must be at least long enough for the function specified in the corresponding step
to be completed. Since, the control unit is implemented by hardwire device and every device is
having a propagation delay, due to which it requires some time to get the stable output signal
at the output port after giving the input signal. So, to find out the time slot is a complicated
design task.

For the moment, for simplicity, let us assume that all slots are equal in time duration. Therefore
the required controller may be implemented based upon the use of a counter driven by a clock.

Each state, or count, of this counter corresponds to one of the steps of the control sequence of
the instructions of the CPU.

In the previous lecture, we have mentioned control sequence for execution of two instructions
only (one is for add and other one is for branch). Like that we need to design the control
sequence of all the instructions.

By looking into the design of the CPU, we may say that there are various instruction for add
operation. As for example,

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ADD NUM R1 Add the contents of memory location specified by NUM to

the contents
of register R1 .

ADD R2 R1 Add the contents of register R2 to the contents of register

R1.

The control sequence for execution of these two ADD instructions are different. Of course, the
fetch phase of all the instructions remain same.

It is clear that control signals depend on the instruction, i.e., the contents of the instruction
register. It is also observed that execution of some of the instructions depend on the contents
of condition code or status flag register, where the control sequence depends in conditional
branch instruction.

Hence, the required control signals are uniquely determined by the following information:

o Contents of the control counter.

o Contents of the instruction register.

o Contents of the condition code and other status flags.

The external inputs represent the state of the CPU and various control lines connected to it,
such as MFC status signal. The condition codes/ status flags indicates the state of the CPU.
These includes the status flags like carry, overflow, zero, etc.

Figure 5.10: Organization of control unit.

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The structure of control unit can be represented in a simplified view by putting it in block
diagram. The detailed hardware involved may be explored step by step. The simplified view of
the control unit is given in the Figure 5.10.

The decoder/encoder block is simply a combinational circuit that generates the required
control outputs depending on the state of all its input.

The decoder part of decoder/encoder part provides a separate signal line for each control step,
or time slot in the control sequence. Similarly, the output of the instructor decoder consists of a
separate line for each machine instruction loaded in the IR, one of the output lines
INS1 to INSm is set to 1 and all other lines are set to 0.

The detailed view of the control unit organization is shown in the Figure 5.11.

Figure 5.11: Detailed view of Control Unit organization

All input signals to the encoder block should be combined to generate the individual control
signals.

In the previous section, we have mentioned the control sequence of the instruction,

"Add contents of memory location address in memory direct made to register R1 ( ADD_MD)",

"Control sequence for an unconditional branch instruction (BR)",

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Also, we have mentioned about Branch on negative (BRN).

Consider those three CPU instructions ADD_MD, BR, BRN.

It is required to generate many control signals by the control unit. These are basically coming
out from the encoder circuit of the control signal generator. The control signals are: PCin, PCout,
Zin, Zout, MARin, ADD, END, etc.

By looking into the above three instructions, we can write the logic function for Zin as :

Zin = T1 + T6 . ADD_MD + T5 . BR + T5 . BRN + . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For all instructions, in time step1 we need the control signal Zin to enable the input to register
Zin time cycle T6 of ADD_MD instruction, in time cycle T5 of BR instruction and so on.

Similarly, the Boolean logic function for ADD signal is

ADD = T1 + T6 . ADD_MD + T5 . BR + . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

These logic functions can be implemented by a two level combinational circuit of AND and OR
gates.

Similarly, the END control signal is generated by the logic function:

END = T8. ADD_MD + T7 . BR + ( T7 . N + T4 . ) . BRN + . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This END signal indicates the end of the execution of an instruction, so this END signal can be
used to start a new instruction fetch cycle by resetting the control step counter to its starting
value.

The circuit diagram (Partial) for generating Zin and END signal is shown in the Figure 5.12 and
Figure 5.13 respectively.

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Figure 5.13: Generation of the END Control

Figure 5.12: Generation of Zin Control Signal Signal

The signal ADD_MD, BR, BRN etc. are coming from instruction decoder circuits which depends
on the contents of IR.

The signal T1, T2, T3 etc are coming out from step decoder depends on control step counter.

The signal N (Negative) is coming from condition code register.

When wait for MFC (WMFC) signal is generated, then CPU does not do any works and it waits
for an MFC signal from memory unit. In this case, the desired effect is to delay the initiation of
the next control step until the MFC signal is received from the main memory. This can be
incorporated by inhibiting the advancement of the control step counter for the required period.

Let us assume that the control step counter is controlled by a signal called RUN.

By looking at the control sequence of all the instructions, the WMFC signal is generated as:

WMFC = T2 + T5 . ADD_MD + . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The RUN signal is generated with the help of WMFC signal and MFC signal. The arrangement is
shown in the Figure 5.14.

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Figure 5.14: Generation of RUN signal

The MFC signal is generated by the main memory whose operation is independent of CPU
clock. Hence MFC is an asynchronous signal that may arrive at any time relative to the CPU
clock. It is possible to synchronized with CPU clock with the help of a D flip-flop.

When WMFC signal is high, then RUN signal is low. This run signal is used with the master clock
pulse through an AND gate. When RUN is low, then the CLK signal remains low, and it does not
allow to progress the control step counter.

When the MFC signal is received, the run signal becomes high and the CLK signal becomes same
with the MCLK signal and due to which the control step counter progresses. Therefore, in the
next control step, the WMFC signal goes low and control unit operates normally till the next
memory access signal is generated.

The timing diagram for an instruction fetch operation is shown in the Figure 5.15.

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Figure 5.15: Timing of control signals during instruction fetch

Programmable Logic Array

In this discussion, we have presented a simplified view of the way in which the sequence of
control signals needed to fetch and execute instructions may be generated.

It is observed from the discussion that as the number of instruction increases the number of
required control signals will also increase.

In VLSI technology, structures that involve regular interconnection patterns are much easier to
implement than the random connections.

One such regular structure is PLA (programmable logic array). PLAs are nothing but the arrays
of AND gates followed by array of OR gates. If the control signals are expressed as sum of
product form then with the help of PLA it can be implemented.

The PLA implementation of control unit is shown in the Figure 5.16.

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Figure 5.16: Instruction cycle state diagram with interrupt.

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Lecture 5 - Micro programmed Control

In hardwired control, we saw how all the control signals required inside the CPU can be
generated using a state counter and a PLA circuit.

There is an alternative approach by which the control signals required inside the CPU can be
generated. This alternative approach is known as microprogrammed control unit.

In microprogrammed control unit, the logic of the control unit is specified by a microprogram.

A microprogram consists of a sequence of instructions in a microprogramming language. These

are instructions that specify microoperations.

A microprogrammed control unit is a relatively simple logic circuit that is capable of (1)
sequencing through microinstructions and (2) generating control signals to execute each
microinstruction.

The concept of microprogram is similar to computer program. In computer program the

complete instructions of the program is stored in main memory and during execution it fetches
the instructions from main memory one after another. The sequence of instruction fetch is
controlled by program counter (PC) .

Microprogram are stored in microprogram memory and the execution is controlled by

microprogram counter ( PC).

Microprogram consists of microinstructions which are nothing but the strings of 0's and 1's. In a
particular instance, we read the contents of one location of microprogram memory, which is
nothing but a microinstruction. Each output line ( data line ) of microprogram memory
corresponds to one control signal. If the contents of the memory cell is 0, it indicates that the
signal is not generated and if the contents of memory cell is 1, it indicates to generate that
control signal at that instant of time.

First let me define the different terminologies that are related to microprogrammed control
unit.

Control Word (CW):

Control word is defined as a word whose individual bits represent the various control signal.
Therefore each of the control steps in the control sequence of an instruction defines a unique
combination of 0s and 1s in the CW.

A sequence of control words (CWs) corresponding to the control sequence of a machine

instruction constitutes the microprogram for that instruction.

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The individual control words in this microprogram are referred to as microinstructions.

The microprograms corresponding to the instruction set of a computer are stored in a special
memory which will be referred to as the microprogram memory. The control words related to
instructions are stored in microprogram memory.

The control unit can generate the control signals for any instruction by sequentially reading the
CWs of the corresponding microprogram from the microprogram memory. To read the control
word sequentially from the microprogram memory a microprogram counter ( PC) is needed.

The basic organization of a microprogrammed control unit is shown in the Figure 5.17.

The "starting address generator" block is responsible for loading the starting address of the
microprogram into the PC every time a new instruction is loaded in the IR.

The PC is then automatically incremented by the clock, and it reads the successive
microinstruction from memory.

Figure 5.17: Basic organization of a microprogrammed control

Each microinstruction basically provides the required control signal at that time step. The
microprogram counter ensures that the control signal will be delivered to the various parts of
the CPU in correct sequence.

We have some instructions whose execution depends on the status of condition codes and
status flag, as for example, the branch instruction. During branch instruction execution, it is
required to take the decision between the alternative actions.

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To handle such type of instructions with microprogrammed control, the design of control unit is
based on the concept of conditional branching in the microprogram. For that it is required to
include some conditional branch microinstructions.

In conditional microinstructions, it is required to specify the address of the microprogram

memory to which the control must direct. It is known as branch address. Apart from branch
address, these microinstructions can specify which of the states flags, condition codes, or
possibly, bits of the instruction register should be checked as a condition for branching to take
place.

To support microprogram branching, the organization of control unit should be modified to

accommodate the branching decision.

To generate the branch address, it is required to know the status of the condition codes and
status flag. To generate the starting address, we need the instruction which is present in IR. But
for branch address generation we have to check the content of condition codes and status flag.

The organization of control unit to enable conditional branching in the microprogram is shown
in the Figure 5.18.

Figure 5.18: Organization of microprogrammed control with conditional branching.

The control bits of the microinstructions word which specify the branch conditions and address
are fed to the "Starting and branch address generator" block.

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This block performs the function of loading a new address into the PC when the condition of
branch instruction is satisfied.

In a computer program we have seen that execution of every instruction consists of two part -
fetch phase and execution phase of the instruction. It is also observed that the fetch phase of
all instruction is same.

In microprogrammed controlled control unit, a common microprogram is used to fetch the

instruction. This microprogram is stored in a specific location and execution of each instruction
start from that memory location.

At the end of fetch microprogram, the starting address generator unit calculate the appropriate
starting address of the microprogram for the instruction which is currently present in IR. After
the PC controls the execution of microprogram which generates the appropriate control
signal in proper sequence.

During the execution of a microprogram, the PC is always incremented everytime a new

microinstruction is fetched from the microprogram memory, except in the following situations :

1. When an End instruction is encountered, the PC is loaded with the address of

the first CW in the microprogram for the instruction fetch cycle.

1. When a new instruction is loaded into the IR, the PC is loaded with the
starting address of the microprogram for that instruction.
2. When a branch microinstruction is encountered, and the branch condition is
satisfied, the PC is loaded with the branch address.

Let us examine the contents of microprogram memory and how the microprogram of each
instruction is stored or organized in microprogram memory. Consider the two example that are
used in our previous lecture . First example is the control sequence for execution of the
instruction "Add contents of memory location addressed in memory direct mode to register
R1".

Steps Actions

1. PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set carry-in to ALU, Add, Zin

2. Zout, PCin, Wait For MFC

3. MDRout, IRin

4. Address-field-of-IRout, MARin, Read

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5. R1out, Yin, Wait for MFC

6. MDRout, Add, Zin

7. Zout, R1in

8. END

Control sequence for Conditional Branch instruction (BRN) Branch on negative)

Steps Actions

1. PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set Carry-in to ALU, Add , Zin

2. Zout, PCin, Wait for MFC

3. MDRout, IRin

4. PCout, Yin

5. Address field-of IRout, Add, Zin

6. Zout, PCin

7. End

First consider the control signal required for fetch instruction , which is same for all the
instruction, we are listing them in a particular order.

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PCout MARin Read Clear Y Set Carry to ALU Add Zin Zout PCin WMFC MDRout IRin

The control word for the first three steps of the above two instruction are : ( which are the
fetch cycle of each instruction as follows ):

Step1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 ---
Step2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 ---
Step3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 ---

We are storing this three CW in memory location 0, 1 and 2. Each instruction starts from
memory location 0. After executing upto third step, i.e., the contents of microprogram memory
location 2, this control word stores the instruction in IR. The starting address generator circuit
now calculate the starting address of the microprogram for the instruction which is available in
IR.

Consider that the microprogram for add instruction is stored from memory location 50 of
microprogram memory. So the partial contents from memory location 50 are as follows
:

Location50 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- -- --
51 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 -- -- --
and so on . . . .

The contents of the compile instruction is given below:

1 - PCin, 2 - PCout, 3 - MARin, 4 - Read, 5 - MDRout, 6 - IRin, 7 - , 8 - Yin, 9 - Clear Y,
10 - Carry-in, 11 - add, 12 - Zin, 13 - Zout, 14 -RIout, 15 - RIin, 16 - WMFC, 17 - END.

Memory Location --------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

0 ---------- 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 -----------

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1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 ----------
2 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ---------
|

|
50 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
51 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0
52 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
53 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
54 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

When the microprogram executes the End microinstruction of an instruction, then it generates
the End control signal. This End control signal is used to load the PC with the starting address
of fetch instruction ( In our case it is address 0 of microprogram memory). Now the CPU is
ready to fetch the next instruction from main memory.

From the discussion, it is clear that microprograms are similar to computer program, but it is in
one level lower, that's why it is called microprogram.

For each instruction of the instruction set of the CPU, we will have a microprogram.

While executing a computer program, we fetch instruction by instruction from main memory
which is controlled by program counter (PC).

When we fetch an instruction from main memory, to execute that instruction, we execute the
microprogram for that instruction. Microprograms are nothing but the collection of
microinstructions. These microinstructions will be fetched from microprogram memory one
after another and its sequence is maintained by PC. Fetching of microinstruction basically
provides the required control signal at that time instant.

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Problems

Q 1: What are the major components of CPU?

Q 2: What is the overall function of a processor's control unit?

Q 3: Provide a typical list of the inputs and outputs of a control unit.

Q 4: What are the basic tasks that must be performed by a CPU?

Q 5: Why registers are used in CPU?

Q 6: Explain the use of the following registers-

a. Program counter
b. Instruction register
c. Memory address register
d. Memory buffer register

Q 7: What do you mean by flag bits. Explain the use of the following flags- sign, zero, carry,
overflow and equal .

Q 8: What are the main two phases of instruction execution?

Q 9: Give and explain the instruction cycle state diagram. .

Q 10: Explain the tasks that can be performed during fetch phase of an instruction execution.

Q 11: Consider the single bus organization of the CPU that is explained in the lecture note.
Write the sequence of control steps required for each of the following instructions-

a. Subtract the number NUM from register R1

b. Subtract contents of memory location NUM from register R1
c. Subtract contents of memory location whose address is at memory location NUM from
register R1

Q 12: What is the use of control signal Memory Function Complete (MFC) and Wait for Memory
Function Complete (WMFC)?

Q 13: Give the organization of control unit and explain each component.

Q 14: What is the relationship between instructions and micro-operation?

Q 15: What do you mean by horizontal and vertical organization of micro instruction?

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Q 16: Why micro-program counter (MPC) is needed in micro-programmed controlled

architecture?

Q 17: Explain the following sequencing techniques for micro-program. Two address fields,
single address fields and variable format.

Q 18: What are the advantages and disadvantages of hardwired and micro-programmed
control? Why is micro-programmed control becoming increasingly more popular?.

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