ECE 514M
Assembly language lets you talk to a computer in its "native tongue"
All computer programs actually run in machine language
High level languages such as C must be translated (compiled) into machine language
Assembly language translates directly into machine language
Low-level access to the computer
Higher speed
Total control over CPU
(Must know what you are doing in order to make these advantages work)
Increased risk of bugs
subtle mistakes can be more costly
Reduced portability
programs run on only one type of CPU
Absence of library routines
must write your own
Integrated-circuit (IC) chips are used in the construction of computer circuits
Each IC chip may contain thousands or even millions of transistors
These IC circuits are known as digital circuits because they operate on discrete voltage
signal levels, typically, a high voltage and a low voltage
We use the symbols 0 and 1 to represent the low and high voltage signals
These symbols are called binary digits or bits
All information processed by the computer is represented by strings of 0's and 1's; that is
by bit strings
Inside the system unit is a main circuit board called the systemboard that contains
the central processing unit (CPU) and memory circuits
The system board is also called a motherboard because it contains expansion slots
for additional circuit boards called add-in boards
In a microcomputer, the CPU is a single-chip processor called a microprocessor
Information processed by the computer is stored in its memory
A memory circuit element can store one bit of data
Memory circuits are usually organized into groups that can store eight bits of data,
and a string of eight bits is called a byte
Each memory byte circuit is identified by a number that is called its address
The first memory byte has address 0
The data stored in a memory byte are called its contents
The address of a memory byte is fixed and is different from the address of any other
memory byte in the computer
The contents of a memory byte are not unique and are subject to change
The figure shows the organization of memory bytes; the contents are arbitrary
Another distinction between address and contents is that while the contents of a
memory byte are always eight bits, the number of bits in an address depends on the
processor
For example, the Intel 8086 assigns a 20-bit address, and the Intel 80286 uses a 24-bit
address
The number of bits used in the address determines the number of bytes that can be
accessed by the processor
Suppose a processor uses 20 bits for an address. How many memory bytes can be
accessed?
Solution:
A bit can have two possible values, so in a 20-bit address there can be 220 = 1,048,576
different values, with each value being the potential address of a memory byte
In computer lingo, the number 220 is called 1 mega -- thus a 20-bit address can be used to
address one megabyte or 1MB
In a typical microcomputer, two bytes form a word
The 8086 allows any pair of successive memory bytes to be treated as a single unit,
called a memory word
The lower address of the two bytes is used as the address of the memory word
Thus the word with the address 2 is made up of the bytes with addresses 2 and 3
The microprocessor can tell from the context whether an address refers to a byte or
a word
This figure shows the bit positions for a byte and a word
The positions are numbered from right to left, starting with 0
In a word, bits 0 to 7 form the low byte and bits 8 to 15 form the high byte
The low byte comes from the memory byte with the lower address
The processor can perform two operations on memory:
fetch -- read the contents of a location
store -- write data to a location
In a fetch, the processor only gets a copy of the data -- the original contents are
unchanged
In a store, the data written become the new contents of the location -- the original
contents are lost
A processor communicates with memory and I/O by using signals that travel along a
set of wires called a bus that connect the different components
There are three buses:
address bus
data bus
control bus
To fetch the contents of a memory location
The CPU places the address of the memory location on the address bus
The CPU sends a control signal to the memory circuits telling it to read from memory on
the control bus
It receives the data, sent by the memory circuits, on the data bus
The CPU
The CPU controls the computer by executing programs stored in memory
Each instruction is a bit string
For the 8086, instructions are from one to six bytes long
This language of 0's and 1's is called machine language
The instructions performed by a CPU are its instruction set
The instruction set for each type of CPU is unique
Machine language instructions are designed to be simple
Complex programs are just a sequence of very basic operations
Intel 8086 Microprocessor Organization
Executes instructions, obviously
Contains a circuit called the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU)
The ALU can perform arithmetic (+,-,*,/) and logic (AND, OR, NOT) operations
The data for the operations are stored in register circuits
Registers are like memory, only
much faster
referenced by name instead of number address
The EU has eight registers for storing data
AX, BX, CX, DX, SI, DI, BP, and SP
We will speak more of these later
In addition, there are
unnamed temporary registers for holding operands for the ALU
the FLAGS register whose individual bits reflect the result of a comparison
Facilitates communication between the EU and the memory or I/O circuits
Responsible for transmitting addresses, data, and control signals on the buses
Its registers are named CS, DS, ES, SS, and IP; they hold addresses of memory
locations
IP (instruction pointer) contains the address of the next instruction to be executed
by the EU
The EU and BIU are connected by an internal bus -- they work together
While the EU is executing an instruction, the BIU fetches up to six bytes of the next
instruction and places them in the instruction queue
This operation is called instruction prefetch
Its purpose is to speed up the processor
A machine instruction has two parts:
an opcode, and
operands
The opcode specifies the type of operation
The operands are often memory addresses to the data
The CPU goes through the following steps to execute a machine instruction:
Fetch
fetch an instruction from memory
decode the instruction to determine the operations
fetch data from memory if necessary
Execute
perform the operation on the data
store the result in memory if needed
The instruction that adds the contents of register AX to the contents of memory word 0 is
00000001 00000110 00000000 00000000
The first byte of the instruction is stored at the location indicated by the IP
1. Fetch the instruction
The BIU places a memory read request on the control bus and the address of the instruction on the
address bus
Memory responds by sending the contents of the location specified -- namely, the instruction just
given -- over the data bus
The CPU accepts the data and adds 4 to the IP so that the IP will contain the address of the next
instruction
2. Decode the instruction
On receiving the instruction, a decoder circuit in the EU decodes the instruction and determines
that it is an ADD operation involving the word at address 0
3. Fetch data from memory
The EU informs the BIU to get the contents of memory word 0
The BIU sends address 0 over the address bus and a memory read request is again sent over the control bus
The contents of memory word 0 are sent back over the data bus to the EU and placed in a holding register
4. Perform the operation
The contents of the holding register and the AX register are sent to the ALU, which performs the addition and holds the
sum
5. Store the result
The EU directs the BIU to store the sum at address 0
To do so, the BIU sends out a memory write request over the control bus, the address 0 over the address bus, and the
sum to be stored over the data bus
The previous contents of memory word 0 are overwritten by the sum
The cycle is repeated for the instruction whose address is now contained in the IP
Even though machine instructions are very simple, their execution is actually quite
complex.
A clock circuit controls the processor by generating a train of clock pulses
The original IBM PC had a clock rate of 4.77MHz, but current Intel chips have clock
rates of over 1000MHz, or 1GHz
•Machine Language
•A CPU can only execute machine language instructions (which are bit strings)
Machine Instruction Operation
10100001 00000000 00000000 Fetch contents of memory word 0 and put it in register AX
00000101 00000100 00000000 Add 4 to AX
10100011 00000000 00000000 Store the contents of AX in memory word 0
•As you can imagine, writing programs in machine language is tedious and subject to error
Assembly Language
•A more convenient language to use is assembly language
•In it, we use symbolic names to represent operations, registers, and memory locations
•If location 0 is symbolized by A, the preceding program would look like this:
Assembly Language Operation
Instruction
MOV AX,A Fetch contents of memory word 0 and put it in register AX
ADD AX,4 Add 4 to AX
MOV A,AX Store the contents of AX in memory word 0
•A program written in assembly language must be converted to machine language before the CPU can execute it
•A program called an assembler translates each assembly language statement into a single machine language instruction
Assembly language is easier than machine language, but it's still difficult because
the instruction set is so primitive
That is why high-level languages like C were developed
A program called a compiler is needed to translate a high-level language program
into machine code
A high-level language statement typically translates into many machine language
instructions
Sample Assembly Language Program
%TITLE "SAMPLE PROGRAM"
.MODEL SMALL
.STACK 100H
.DATA
A DW 2
B DW 5
SUM DW ?
.CODE
MAIN PROC
;initialize DS
MOV AX,@DATA
MOV DS,AX
;add the numbers
MOV AX,A ;AX has A
ADD AX,B ;AX has A+B
MOV SUM,AX ;SUM = A+B
;exit to DOS
MOV AX,4C00h
INT 21h
MAIN ENDP
