Lecture 1 - Microprocessor Basics
Lecture 1 - Microprocessor Basics
By Michael Xenya
Outline
A basic microprocessor system:
the CPU,
memory,
I/O, and buses subsystems,
Basic operation of a microprocessor system:
Fetch, decode and execute cycle,
The architecture of some typical 8- bit
microprocessors and micro-controllers,
Some typical 8-bit micro-controllers and their features
1.1 A basic microprocessor system
• A system must have at least one input, one
output and must do something,
i.e. it must contain a process.
Fig 1
Terminologies
Integrated circuits
An electronic circuit fabricated out of a solid block
of semiconductor material.
Micro
The word micro is used in electronics and in science generally, to mean
‘one-millionth’ or 1 /106.
It has also entered general language to mean something very small like a
very small processor or microprocessor.
Microcomputer
The particular microprocessor-based systems that happen to
be used as a computer are called microcomputers.
Byte
• A byte is simply a collection of 8 bits. Whether
they are ones or zeros
• or what their purpose is does not matter.
Word and word sizes
Word
• A number of bits can be collected together to form a ‘word’.
• Unlike a byte, a word does not have a fixed number of bits in it.
• It depends on microprocessor being used.
• The most likely values are 8, 16, 32 and 64 bits but no value is
excluded.
Long word
• In some microprocessors where a word is taken to mean say 16 bits,
• a long word would mean a group of twice the normal length, in this
case 32 bits.
• Kilobyte (Kb or KB or kbyte)
• A kilobyte is 1024 or 210 bytes. In normal use, kilo
means 1000 .
• In the binary system, the nearest column value to
1000 is 1024 since 29 = 512 and 210 = 1024.
• The move in the computing world to use an upper
case K to mean 1024 rather than k for meaning 1000
is trying to address this problem.
• Bits often help to confuse the situation even further.
1000 bits is a kilobit or kb. Sometimes 1024 bits is a
Kb. One way to solve the bit/byte problem is to use
kbit (or Kbit) and kbyte (or Kbyte).
• Megabyte (MB or Mb)
This is a kilokilobyte or 1024 1024 bytes.
Numerically this is 220 or 1 048 576 bytes.
• Gigabyte (Gb)
This is 1024 megabytes which is 230 or 1 073
741 824 bytes. In general engineering, giga
means one thousand million (109).
• Terabyte (TB or Tb)
• Terabyte is a megamegabyte or 240 or 1 099 511 600
000 bytes (Tera = 1012).
As introduction,
•ALU will holds data temporarily
and carries out the calculations but
An input/output
chip has been
added
A complete microprocessor system
Operation of Microprocessor
• To demonstrate its operation we can ask it to perform a
simple task.
• The operation follows a three cycle model: fetch, decode and
execute.