Lecture 1

Basic Concepts
Microprocessor
&
Assembly Language Programming
 Goals and Required Background
 Goals: broaden student’s interest and knowledge in …
 Basic organization of a computer system
 Intel IA-16 and IA-32 processor architecture
 How to write assembly language programs
 How high-level languages translate into assembly language
 Interaction between the assembly language programs, libraries,
the operating system, and the hardware
 How interrupts, system calls, and handlers work

 Required Background
 The student should already be able to program confidently in at
least one high-level programming language, such as Java or C.
Basic Concepts Computer Organization and Assembly Language
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 Hardware

 Hardware is the machine itself and its various individual

equipment.
 It includes all mechanical, electronic and magnetic
devices such as monitor, printer, electronic circuit, floppy
and hard disk.

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3
 SOFTWARE

 Software refers to the set of computer programs, which

are used in applications and operating systems.

 It is the collection of programs, which increase the

capabilities of the hardware.

 Software guides the computer at every step where to

start and stop during a particular job.

 The process of software development is called

programming.

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 SOFTWARE TYPES

 Application Software :

 useful for word processing, accounting, application

Software is a set of programs for a specific application.

 Application software is reducing statistical report,

Graphics, Excel and Data Base.

 programming languages COBOL, FORTRAN, C++, VB,

VC, Java

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 System Software:

 When you switch on the computer the programs written in

ROM is executed which activates different units of your
computer and makes it ready for you to work.

 This set of programs can be called system software.

 System software are general programs designed for

performing tasks such as controlling all operations required to
move data into and out of the computer

 System Software allows application packages to be run on the

computer.

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 Computer manufactures build and supply this
system software with the computer system.

 DOS, UNIX and WINDOWS are some of the

widely used operating system software.

 Out of these UNIX is a multi-user operating

system whereas DOS and WINDOWS are PC-
based.

Basic Concepts Computer Organization and Assembly Language 7

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 A Hierarchy of Languages

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 Assembly and Machine Language
 Machine language
 Native to a processor: executed directly by hardware
 Instructions consist of binary code: 1s and 0s
 Assembly language
 A programming language that uses symbolic names to represent
operations, registers and memory locations.
 Slightly higher-level language
 Readability of instructions is better than machine language
 One-to-one correspondence with machine language instructions
 Assemblers translate assembly to machine code
 Compilers translate high-level programs to machine code
 Either directly, or
 Indirectly via an assembler
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 Compiler and Assembler

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 Instructions and Machine Language
 Each command of a program is called an instruction (it
instructs the computer what to do).

 Computers only deal with binary data, hence the

instructions must be in binary format (0s and 1s) .

 The set of all instructions (in binary form) makes up the

computer's machine language. This is also referred to as
the instruction set.

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 Instruction Fields
 Machine language instructions usually are made up of
several fields. Each field specifies different information
for the computer. The major two fields are:
 Opcode field which stands for operation code and it
specifies the particular operation that is to be performed.
 Each operation has its unique opcode.
 Operands fields which specify where to get the source
and destination operands for the operation specified by
the opcode.
 The source/destination of operands can be a constant, the
memory or one of the general-purpose registers.

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 Assembly vs. Machine Code

Flash Movie

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 Translating Languages
English: D is assigned the sum of A times B plus 10.

High-Level Language: D = A * B + 10

A statement in a high-level language is translated

typically into several machine-level instructions

Intel Assembly Language: Intel Machine Language:

mov eax, A A1 00404000
mul B F7 25 00404004
add eax, 10 83 C0 0A
mov D, eax A3 00404008

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 Address, Data and Control Bus
 To inform memory whether processor wants to read or
write – control bus
 To inform memory the precise element processor is
interested in – address bus
 To transfer the data element from memory to processor
– data bus
Address Bus

Data Bus
MEMORY
PROCESSOR
Control Bus

I/O DEVICES

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 Address, Data and Control Bus
 Memory cell is an n-bit location to store data
 Cell width along with number of cells define the memory
completely
 Width of all the buses

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 Registers
 Only one address bus so only one operand can be
brought from memory.
 Other operand must be in the registers
 Types of registers
 Accumulator
 Pointer, Index or Base Address
 Flag Register or Program Status Word
 Program Counter or Instruction Pointer

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 Instruction Groups
 Data Movement Instruction
 Arithmetic and Logic Instructions
 Program Control Instructions
 Special Instructions

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 Basic Computer Organization
 Since the 1940's, computers have 3 classic components:
 Processor, called also the CPU (Central Processing Unit)
 Memory and Storage Devices
 I/O Devices
 Interconnected with one or more buses
 Bus consists of data bus

 Data Bus registers

 Address Bus Processor Memory

I/O I/O
Device Device
(CPU)
 Control Bus #1 #2

ALU CU clock

control bus

address bus

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 Processor (CPU)
 Processor consists of
 Datapath
Flash Movie
 ALU
 Registers
 Control unit
 ALU Flash Movie

 Performs arithmetic
and logic instructions
 Control unit (CU)
 Generates the control signals required to execute instructions
 Implementation varies from one processor to another

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 Memory
 Ordered sequence of bytes
 The sequence number is called the memory address

 Byte addressable memory

 Each byte has a unique address
 Supported by almost all processors

 Physical address space

 Determined by the address bus width
 Pentium has a 32-bit address bus
 Physical address space = 4GB = 232 bytes
 Itanium with a 64-bit address bus can support
 Up to 264 bytes of physical address space
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 Address Space

Address Space is
the set of memory
locations (bytes) that
can be addressed

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 CPU Memory Interface
 Address Bus
 Memory address is put on address bus
 If memory address = m bits then 2m locations are addressed
 Data Bus: b-bit bi-directional bus
 Data can be transferred in both directions on the data bus
 Note that b is not necessary equal to w or s. So data transfers
might take more than a single cycle (if w > b) .
 Control Bus
 Signals control
transfer of data
 Read request
 Write request
 Complete transfer
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 Typical Memory Hierarchy
 Registers are at the top of the hierarchy
 Typical size < 1 KB
 Access time < 0.5 ns
 Level 1 Cache (8 – 64 KB) Microprocessor

 Access time: 0.5 – 1 ns Registers

 L2 Cache (512KB – 8MB) L1 Cache

 Access time: 2 – 10 ns L2 Cache

Bigger
 Main Memory (1 – 2 GB) Faster Memory Bus

 Access time: 50 – 70 ns Memory

I/O Bus
 Disk Storage (> 200 GB)
Disk, Tape, etc
 Access time: milliseconds
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