Assembly Language for x86 Processors

7th Edition
Kip Irvine

Chapter 2: x86 Processor

Architecture

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 Chapter Overview

• General Concepts
• IA-32 Processor Architecture
• IA-32 Memory Management

Irvine, Kip R. Assembly Language for x86 Processors 6/e, 2010. 2

 General Concepts

• Basic microcomputer design

• Instruction execution cycle
• Reading from memory
• How programs run

Irvine, Kip R. Assembly Language for x86 Processors 6/e, 2010. 3

 Basic Microcomputer Design
• clock synchronizes CPU operations
• control unit (CU) coordinates sequence of execution steps
• ALU performs arithmetic and bitwise processing
data bus

registers

I/O I/O
Central Processor Unit Memory Storage
Device Device
(CPU) Unit
#1 #2

ALU CU clock

control bus

address bus

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 Clock
• Synchronizes all CPU and BUS operations
• Machine (clock) cycle measures time of a single operation
• Clock is used to trigger events
• A cycle duration is the reciprocal of the clock’s speed
• 1 GHz: cycle duration 1 billionth of a second, 1 nanosecond
• Wait state, empty cycle
one cycle

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 What's Next

• General Concepts
• IA-32 Processor Architecture
• IA-32 Memory Management
• Components of an IA-32 Microcomputer
• Input-Output System

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 Instruction Execution Cycle

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 Instruction Execution Cycle

• Fetch
• Decode
• Fetch operands
• Execute
• Store output

Irvine, Kip R. Assembly Language for Intel-Based Computers 5/e, 2007. 8

 Reading from Memory
• Multiple machine cycles are required when reading from memory,
because it responds much more slowly than the CPU. The steps are:
1. Place the address of the value you want to read on the address bus.
2. Assert (changing the value of) the processor’s RD (read) pin.
3. Wait one clock cycle for the memory chips to respond.
4. Copy the data from the data bus into the destination operand
Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 3 Cycle 4

CLK

Address
ADDR

RD

Data
DATA

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 Cache Memory

• High-speed expensive static RAM both inside and

outside the CPU.
• Level-1 cache: inside the CPU
• Level-2 cache: outside the CPU
• Cache hit: when data to be read is already in cache
memory
• Cache miss: when data to be read is not in cache
memory.

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 How a Program Runs
User
• As soon as the program begins
running, it’s called a Process
• A process has its memory and
sends program may contains multiple Threads
name to

Operating searches for Current

system program in directory

gets starting
cluster from returns to
System
loads and path
starts
Directory Program
entry

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 Multitasking
• OS can run multiple programs at the same time.
• Multiple threads of execution within the same
program.
• Scheduler utility assigns a given amount of CPU time
to each running program.
• Rapid switching of tasks
• gives illusion that all programs are running at once
• the processor must support task switching.

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 Round-Robin Scheduler
• Task switching: Context, Priority

Irvine, Kip R. Assembly Language for Intel-Based Computers 5/e, 2007. 13

 IA-32 Processor Architecture

• Modes of operation
• Basic execution environment
• Floating-point unit
• Intel Microprocessor history

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 Modes of Operation
• Protected mode
• native mode (Windows, Linux)
• Real-address mode
• native MS-DOS
• System management mode
• power management, system security, diagnostics

• Virtual-8086 mode
• hybrid of Protected
• each program has its own 8086 computer

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 Basic Execution Environment

• Addressable memory
• General-purpose registers
• Index and base registers
• Specialized register uses
• Status flags
• Floating-point, MMX, XMM registers

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 Addressable Memory

• Protected mode
• 4 GB
• 32-bit address
• Real-address and Virtual-8086 modes
• 1 MB space
• 20-bit address

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 General-Purpose Registers
Named storage locations inside the CPU, optimized for speed.

32-bit General-Purpose Registers

EAX EBP
EBX ESP
ECX ESI
EDX EDI

16-bit Segment Registers

EFLAGS CS ES
SS FS
EIP
DS GS

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 Accessing Parts of Registers
• Use 8-bit name, 16-bit name, or 32-bit name
• Applies to EAX, EBX, ECX, and EDX
8 8

AH AL 8 bits + 8 bits

AX 16 bits

EAX 32 bits

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 Index and Base Registers

• Some registers have only a 16-bit name for their

lower half:

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 Some Specialized Register Uses (1 of 2)

• General-Purpose
• EAX – accumulator
• ECX – loop counter
• ESP – stack pointer
• ESI, EDI – index registers
• EBP – extended frame pointer (stack)
• Segment
• CS – code segment
• DS – data segment
• SS – stack segment
• ES, FS, GS - additional segments

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 Some Specialized Register Uses (2 of 2)

• EIP – instruction pointer

• IP for 16-bit
• EFLAGS
• status and control flags
• each flag is a single binary bit

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 Status Flags
• Carry
• unsigned arithmetic out of range
• Overflow
• signed arithmetic out of range
• Sign
• result is negative
• Zero
• result is zero
• Auxiliary Carry
• carry from bit 3 to bit 4
• Parity
• sum of 1 bits is an even number

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 Floating-Point, MMX, XMM Registers
80-bit Data Registers

• Eight 80-bit floating-point data registers ST(0)

• ST(0), ST(1), . . . , ST(7) ST(1)

ST(2)
• arranged in a stack
ST(3)
• used for all floating-point
ST(4)
arithmetic
ST(5)
• Eight 64-bit MMX registers
ST(6)
• Eight 128-bit XMM registers for single-
ST(7)
instruction multiple-data (SIMD) operations

Opcode Register

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 What's Next

• General Concepts
• IA-32 Processor Architecture
• IA-32 Memory Management
• 64-Bit Processors

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 IA-32 Memory Management

• Real-address mode
• Calculating linear addresses
• Protected mode
• Multi-segment model
• Paging

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 Real-Address mode

• 1 MB RAM maximum addressable

• Application programs can access any area
of memory
• Single tasking
• Supported by MS-DOS operating system

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 Protected Mode

• 4 GB addressable RAM
• (00000000 to FFFFFFFFh)
• Each program assigned a memory partition which
is protected from other programs
• Designed for multitasking
• Supported by Linux & MS-Windows

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 Paging
• Supported directly by the CPU
• Divides each segment into 4096-byte blocks called
pages
• Sum of all programs can be larger than physical
memory
• Part of running program is in memory, part is on disk
• Virtual memory manager (VMM) – OS utility that
manages the loading and unloading of pages
• Page fault – issued by CPU when a page must be
loaded from disk

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 What's Next

• General Concepts
• IA-32 Processor Architecture
• IA-32 Memory Management
• 64-Bit Processors

Irvine, Kip R. Assembly Language for x86 Processors 7/e, 2015. 30

 64-Bit Processors

• 64-Bit Operation Modes

• Compatibility mode – can run existing 16-bit and 32-bit
applications (Windows supports only 32-bit apps in this
mode)
• 64-bit mode – Windows 64 uses this
• Basic Execution Environment
• addresses can be 64 bits (48 bits, in practice)
• 16 64-bit general purpose registers
• 64-bit instruction pointer named RIP

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 64-Bit General Purpose Registers
• 32-bit general purpose registers:
• EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, EDI, ESI, EBP, ESP, R8D,
R9D, R10D, R11D, R12D, R13D, R14D, R15D
• 64-bit general purpose registers:
• RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX, RDI, RSI, RBP, RSP, R8, R9,
R10, R11, R12, R13, R14, R15

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 64-bit Processors
• Intel64
• 64-bit linear address space
• Intel: Pentium Extreme, Xeon, Celeron D, Pendium D,
Core 2, and Core i7
• IA-32e Mode
• Compatibility mode for legacy 16- and 32-bit applications
• 64-bit Mode uses 64-bit addresses and operands

x64 Assembly Information

• x64 Registers: http://www.ntcore.com/files/vista_x64.htm
• x86-64: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64

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 The End

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