1.

2. What is instruction execution cycle? Also write note on pipelined execution and
superscalar architecture
An instruction cycle (sometimes called a fetchdecode
execute cycle) is the basic operational process of a computer. It is the process by which a
computer retrieves a program instruction from its memory, determines what actions the
instruction dictates, and carries out those actions. This cycle is repeated continuously by a
computer's central processing unit (CPU), from boot-up to when the computer is shut down.

Pipeline Execution

The execution of a single instruction by the CPU involves the following steps:

1. Fetch instruction and increment PC

2. Decode instruction
3. Access operands
4. Execute operation
5. Store result

The steps must be performed in sequence for each instruction. In a pipelined CPU, each step
is implemented as an independent stage in an assembly line process.

A single instruction enters the CPU at the Fetch stage and the PC is incremented in one clock
cycle. In the next clock cycle, the instruction moves to the Decode stage. In the third clock
cycle, the instruction moves to the Access stage and the operands are loaded. In the last two
stages, the instruction is executed and the result is stored.

In a five stage pipeline a single instruction will take 5 clock cycles to pass through the
pipeline as shown below:

Since the pipeline stages operate independently, a new instruction may enter the Fetch stage
as soon as the add instruction has moved to the Decode stage. If a sw follows the add, the
pipeline will appear as follows:
Note that while it requires 5 clock cycles to complete the first add instruction,
the sw instruction is completed on the next clock cycle.

Under ideal circumstances, a pipelined processor can produce a result on every clock cycle.
Thus, the peak MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) rating of the CPU equals the clock
speed in Mhz.

A pipelined CPU achieves maximum throughput only when all stages of the pipeline are
filled with instructions which can be processed independently. Performance decreases when
gaps or holes appear in the pipeline. A hole is an empty pipeline stage which is not
processing an instruction.

A superscalar processor is a CPU that implements a form of parallelism called instruction-

level parallelism within a single processor. It therefore allows for more throughput (the
number of instructions that can be executed in a unit of time) than would otherwise be
possible at a given clock rate. A superscalar processor can execute more than one instruction
during a clock cycle by simultaneously dispatching multiple instructions to
different execution units on the processor. Each execution unit is not a separate processor (or
a core if the processor is a multi-core processor), but an execution resource within a single
CPU such as an arithmetic logic unit.

In Flynn's taxonomy, a single-core superscalar processor is classified as an SISD processor

(Single Instruction stream, Single Data stream), though many superscalar processors support
short vector operations and so could be classified as SIMD (Single Instruction stream,
Multiple Data streams). A multi-core superscalar processor is classified as
an MIMD processor (Multiple Instruction streams, Multiple Data streams).
While a superscalar CPU is typically also pipelined, pipelining and superscalar execution are
considered different performance enhancement techniques. The former executes multiple
instructions in the same execution unit in parallel by dividing the execution unit into different
phases, whereas the latter executes multiple instructions in parallel by using multiple
execution units.
The superscalar technique is traditionally associated with several identifying characteristics
(within a given CPU):

Instructions are issued from a sequential instruction stream

The CPU dynamically checks for data dependencies between instructions at run time
(versus software checking at compile time)
The CPU can execute multiple instructions per clock cycle
3. Write a program to read two decimal digits whose sum is less
than 10. Display them and their sum on the next line?
Write a program to (a) display a "?", (b) read two decimal digits
whose sum "is less than 10, (c) display them and their sum on the
next line, with an appropriate message.
Sample execution:
THE SUM OF 2 AND 7 IS 9
Solution:

.MODELSMALL
.STACK100H
.DATA
STR1DB0AH,0DH,'THE SUM OF '
FIRSTNUMDB?
STR2DB' AND '
SECONDNUMDB?
STR3DB' IS '
ANSDB?
STR4DB' $'
.CODE
MAINPROC

MOVAX,@DATA
MOVDS,AX

MOVAH,2
MOVDL,3FH
INT21H

MOVAH,1
INT21H
MOVBL,AL
MOVFIRSTNUM,AL
INT21H
MOVSECONDNUM,AL

ADDBL,AL
SUBBL,30H
MOVANS,BL

MOVAH,9
LEADX,STR1;VARIABLE PRINTING FIRST TO LAST
INT21H

MOVAH,4CH
INT21H

MAINENDP
ENDMAIN
3 Define cache memory its types, cache hit and cache miss and cache

mapping with the help of examples and diagrams?

cache memory
A Cache (Pronounced as cash) is a small and very fast temporary storage
memory. It is designed to speed up the transfer of data and instructions. It is
located inside or close to the CPU chip. It is faster than RAM and the
data/instructions that are most recently or most frequently used by CPU are
stored in cache.
A cache hit is a state in which data requested for processing by a component or
application is found in the cache memory. It is a faster means of delivering data to
the processor, as the cache already contains the requested data.
Cache miss is a state where the data requested for processing by a component or
application is not found in the cache memory. It causes execution delays by requiring
the program or application to fetch the data from other cache levels or the main
memory.
The three different types of mapping used for the purpose of cache memory are as follow,
Associative mapping, Direct mapping and Set-Associative mapping.

- Associative mapping: In this type of mapping the associative memory is used to store
content and addresses both of the memory word. This enables the placement of the any word
at any place in the cache memory. It is considered to be the fastest and the most flexible
mapping form.

- Direct mapping: In direct mapping the RAM is made use of to store data and some is
stored in the cache. An address space is split into two parts index field and tag field. The
cache is used to store the tag field whereas the rest is stored in the main memory. Direct
mapping`s performance is directly proportional to the Hit ratio.

- Set-associative mapping: This form of mapping is a modified form of the direct mapping
where the disadvantage of direct mapping is removed. Set-associative mapping allows that
each word that is present in the cache can have two or more words in the main memory for
the same index address.

Example

A line is an adjacent series of bytes in main memory (that is, their addresses are
contiguous). Suppose a line is 16 bytes in size. For example, suppose we have a
212 = 4K-byte cache with 28 = 256 16-byte lines; a 224 = 16M-byte main memory,
which is 212 = 4K times the size of the cache; and a 400-line program, which will
not all fit into the cache at once.

4 Differentiate between memory and storage also explains

memory segmentation in detail?

Answer: Memory and disk space are two of the most widely-confused terms in the
computing world. To understand how your computer works, you must first know the
difference between memory and disk space.

The hard disk, sometimes called the "hard drive" (which is actually the mechanism that holds
the hard disk), is a spindle of magnetic discs that can hold several gigabytes of data.
Therefore, disk space refers to how much space you have available on your hard disk for
storing files. When you save a document or install a new program, it gets stored on your hard
disk. The more files you download, install, or save on your hard disk, the more full it
becomes.
Memory, on the other hand, is not the same as disk space! Memory refers to the random
access memory (RAM) inside your computer. RAM consists of small chips also known
as memory modules. Your computer uses memory (RAM) to store actively running programs
on the computer, including the operating system. For example, the operating system's
interface and other processes get loaded into memory when the computer boots up. When you
open a program like Microsoft Word, it gets loaded into the computer's memory as well.
When you quit the program, the memory is freed up for use by other programs.
RAM can be accessed hundreds of times times faster than a hard drive, which is why active
programs are loaded into RAM. Since only small amounts of data from hard disk does need
to be loaded into the system memory at one time, computers typically have much more hard
disk space than memory. For example, a 2012 computer may come with a 2 TB hard drive,
and only 16 GB of RAM.

Segmented memory is a system of addressing computer memory, which may be physical

or virtual and may be operating in real or protected mode.
The segmented memory system was used to expand the 64KB limit on first-generation flat
address space. Computers made prior to segmented memory used a flat addressing system
based on a four-digit hexadecimal code. With hexadecimal, the highest 4-digit number you
can create is FFFF (or 65535), which equals 64KB.
Segmented memory addressing, the alternative to the flat scheme, is used in 16-bit systems
such as MS-DOS Windows 3.1, to address 64KB segments of memory with an offset to
specify within the segment.
Segmentation without paging
Associated with each segment is information that indicates where the segment is located in
memory the segment base. When a program references a memory location the offset is
added to the segment base to generate a physical memory address.
An implementation of virtual memory on a system using segmentation without paging
requires that entire segments be swapped back and forth between main memory and
secondary storage. When a segment is swapped in, the operating system has to allocate
enough contiguous free memory to hold the entire segment.
Segmentation with paging
Instead of an actual memory location the segment information includes the address of a page
table for the segment. When a program references a memory location the offset is translated
to a memory address using the page table. A segment can be extended simply by allocating
another memory page and adding it to the segment's page table.
An implementation of virtual memory on a system using segmentation with paging usually
only moves individual pages back and forth between main memory and secondary storage,
similar to a paged non-segmented system. Pages of the segment can be located anywhere in
main memory and need not be contiguous.

5 What are General Purpose Registers, Special purpose and Segment

Registers? Define each of them in detail.

General-Purpose Registers
General purpose registers deal with a wide variety of performance. They are used to hold data
values or intermediate results that will be used frequently. In general, a CPU uses eight
general-purpose registers such as accumulator, data register, address register, source index,
destination index, base pointer, stack pointer, and base register. The first three general-
purpose register are to be discussed in more details in this report.

Accumulator
Accumulator, is a register to perform calculation as well as holding the results of
computations. Basic operations like add, subtract, multiplication or division can occur within
the accumulator register. Accumulator register stores the operands used in arithmetic
operations and hold the results of calculations formed. T. C. Bartee and D. J. Chapman
(1965) commented that when two numbers are added, the augend is initially stored in the
accumulator register; the addend is then read from the memory; and the sum is placed in the
accumulator. Arithmetic operations such as division and multiplication are performed similar
as the process above. Furthermore, the accumulator can be used to perform the logical
functions like AND and OR.

Data Register
As indicated by Irv.E (2010), the memory data register (MDR), sometimes known as the
memory buffer register, will hold a data value that is being stored to or retrieved from the
memory location currently addressed by the memory address register. Memory data register
and memory address register (to be discussed later) are more closely associated with the
workings of memory.

Address Register
When a CPU wants to retrieve data from RAM, it must get the datas memory address. The
process of obtaining the memory address of the data involving a register which is known as
memory address register. A memory address register (MAR), which tracks of where given
data or instruction is stored in memory. In simple words, this register only hold the data
memory location that requires to be accessed. CPU will never perform arithmetic or
calculation on the memory address registers.

Special-Purpose Registers

A special purpose register is one that has a specific control or data handling task to
carry out. There are a number of special purpose registers within the CPU
.

The diagram above shows that the CPU contains a number of registers in order to process
data and to follow program instructions.

Some specialist ones include

Accumulator

This is one of the general purpose registers but it is specifically used to 'accumulate' the
result of the currently running instructions.

For example, a small piece of code needs to fetch a value from main memory and then add
3 to it and finally store the result back into memory. The accumulator will be used
This instruction will load the
LDA 3001 data at address 3001 into the
accumulator
This instruction adds 3 to the
ADC #3
content of the accumulator
This instruction stores the
STA 3001 content of the accumulator into
main memory at location 3001

Instruction Register
In CPU, instruction register is used to store or hold the actual instruction being loaded,
decoded or executed currently. After loaded the instruction from memory, it is decoded and
then executed. Consequently, instruction register serves the data input to the part of decoding
process. According to Stephen D. (1994), decoding refers to the separation of the instruction
into its op code and operands, the movement of data (such as loading data into a register from
a memory address in one of the operands), and the generation of control signals to the ALU
for instruction execution.

Program Counter
Another special-purpose register in CPU is program counter, also called the instruction
pointer, holds the address of the instruction being executed currently or the address of the
following instruction to be executed. For example, suppose there is an instruction being
executed and after the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU) processed it, the processor will search
for the second instruction to be executed. Thus, program counter is responsible for the
following process, which is to track and store the address of the following instruction that is
going to be executed for the purpose of saving time.

Segment Registers
Segments are specific areas defined in a program for containing data, code and stack. There
are three main segments

Code Segment It contains all the instructions to be executed. A 16-bit Code

Segment register or CS register stores the starting address of the code segment.

Data Segment It contains data, constants and work areas. A 16-bit Data Segment
register or DS register stores the starting address of the data segment.

Stack Segment It contains data and return addresses of procedures or subroutines.

It is implemented as a 'stack' data structure. The Stack Segment register or SS
register stores the starting address of the stack.

Apart from the DS, CS and SS registers, there are other extra segment registers - ES (extra
segment), FS and GS, which provide additional segments for storing data.

In assembly programming, a program needs to access the memory locations. All memory
locations within a segment are relative to the starting address of the segment. A segment
begins in an address evenly divisible by 16 or hexadecimal 10. So, the rightmost hex digit in
all such memory addresses is 0, which is not generally stored in the segment registers.

The segment registers stores the starting addresses of a segment. To get the exact location of
data or instruction within a segment, an offset value (or displacement) is required. To
reference any memory location in a segment, the processor combines the segment address in
the segment register with the offset value of the location.
6 Define Programming Language. What is difference between high level
languages and low level language?

A programming language is a set of commands, instructions, and

other syntax use to create a software program. Languages that
programmers use to write code are called "high-level languages."
This code can be compiled into a "low-level language," which is
recognized directly by the computer hardware.

Difference between Low-Level & High-Level Language

High-level Language

1. Learning

High-level languages are easy to learn.

2 Understanding

High0level languages are near to human languages.

3. Execution

Programs in high-level languages are slow in execution.

4. Modification

Programs in high-level languages are easy to modify.

5. Facility at hardware level

High-level languages do not provide much facility at hardware level.

6. Knowledge of hardware Deep

Knowledge of hardware is not required to write programs.

7. Uses

Due to the fact that the complexity of Assembly language programming is extremely hard to
learn, and written programs are hard to maintain, low-level languages often cannot be ported
to another platform, because they use platform, or, rather, CPU specific instructions, thus
written Assembly code for the PC isn't portable to another platform without the complete
rewrite of the program. Programmers were in a need for a language that could be easily
understood and be portable, therefore high-level languages were created. The major
difference between high-level and low-level languages is the way they are written and
compiled.

Low-level languages
1. Learning

Low-level languages are difficult to learn.

2 Understanding

Low-level languages are far from human languages.

3. Execution

Programs in low-level languages are fast in execution.

4. Modification

Programs in low-level languages are difficult to modify.

5. Facility at hardware level

Low-level languages provide facility to write programs at hardware level.

6. Knowledge of hardware Deep

Deep knowledge of hardware is required to write programs.

7. Uses

These languages are normally used to write hardware programs.

A typical example of a low-level programming language is Assembly. Assembly offers
the lowest level of programming experience, meaning that one has absolute control over
everything the machine will do. Although this offers programmers the most power, it is very
hard to learn and even the most basic task can require a painful amount of work on the part of
the programmer. Once compiled, assembly programs usually offer the fastest execution and
most precise processor control possible. Assembly is often used for smaller, speed critical,
projects such as writing a device driver, but due to its hard to understand syntax and
complexity, today it is being replaced by high-level languages. The big difference between
low-level and high-level languages is how the code is compiled into the binary form.
Compiler used for compiling Assembly code is named assembler and as programmers say,
the code written is assembled into binary form, not compiled (see under compilers for more
details).
7 Write features of Assembly language.

What is Assembly Language?

Each personal computer has a microprocessor that manages the computer's arithmetical,
logical, and control activities.

Each family of processors has its own set of instructions for handling various operations
such as getting input from keyboard, displaying information on screen and performing
various other jobs. These set of instructions are called 'machine language instructions'.

A processor understands only machine language instructions, which are strings of 1's and
0's. However, machine language is too obscure and complex for using in software
development. So, the low-level assembly language is designed for a specific family of
processors that represents various instructions in symbolic code and a more understandable
form.

Advantages of Assembly Language

Having an understanding of assembly language makes one aware of

How programs interface with OS, processor, and BIOS;

How data is represented in memory and other external devices;
How the processor accesses and executes instruction;
How instructions access and process data;
How a program accesses external devices.
Other advantages of using assembly language are

It requires less memory and execution time;

It allows hardware-specific complex jobs in an easier way;

It is suitable for time-critical jobs;

It is most suitable for writing interrupt service routines and other memory resident
programs.

Basic Features of PC Hardware

The main internal hardware of a PC consists of processor, memory, and registers. Registers
are processor components that hold data and address. To execute a program, the system
copies it from the external device into the internal memory. The processor executes the
program instructions.

The fundamental unit of computer storage is a bit; it could be ON (1) or OFF (0). A group of
nine related bits makes a byte, out of which eight bits are used for data and the last one is
used for parity. According to the rule of parity, the number of bits that are ON (1) in each
byte should always be odd.

So, the parity bit is used to make the number of bits in a byte odd. If the parity is even, the
system assumes that there had been a parity error (though rare), which might have been
caused due to hardware fault or electrical disturbance.

The processor supports the following data sizes

Word: a 2-byte data item

Doubleword: a 4-byte (32 bit) data item
Quadword: an 8-byte (64 bit) data item
Paragraph: a 16-byte (128 bit) area
Kilobyte: 1024 bytes
Megabyte: 1,048,576 bytes

Binary Number System

Every number system uses positional notation, i.e., each position in
which a digit is written has a different positional value. Each
position is power of the base, which is 2 for binary number system,
and these powers begin at 0 and increase by 1.

The following table shows the positional values for an 8-bit binary
number, where all bits are set ON.

Bit value 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Position value as a power of 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

base 2

Bit number 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
 The value of a binary number is based on the presence of 1 bits
and their positional value. So, the value of a given binary number is

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 +16 + 32 + 64 + 128 = 255

which is same as 28 - 1.

Hexadecimal Number System

Hexadecimal number system uses base 16. The digits in this
system range from 0 to 15. By convention, the letters A through F
is used to represent the hexadecimal digits corresponding to
decimal values 10 through 15.

Hexadecimal numbers in computing is used for abbreviating lengthy

binary representations. Basically, hexadecimal number system
represents a binary data by dividing each byte in half and
expressing the value of each half-byte. The following table provides
the decimal, binary, and hexadecimal equivalents

Decimal number Binary representation Hexadecimal representation

0 0 0

1 1 1

2 10 2

3 11 3

4 100 4

5 101 5

6 110 6
7 111 7

8 1000 8

9 1001 9

10 1010 A

11 1011 B

12 1100 C

13 1101 D

14 1110 E

15 1111 F

To convert a binary number to its hexadecimal equivalent, break it

into groups of 4 consecutive groups each, starting from the right,
and write those groups over the corresponding digits of the
hexadecimal number.

Example Binary number 1000 1100 1101 0001 is equivalent to

hexadecimal - 8CD1

To convert a hexadecimal number to binary, just write each

hexadecimal digit into its 4-digit binary equivalent.

Example Hexadecimal number FAD8 is equivalent to binary -

1111 1010 1101 1000

Binary Arithmetic
The following table illustrates four simple rules for binary addition
(i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

0 1 1 1

+0 +0 +1 +1

=0 =1 =10 =11

Rules (iii) and (iv) show a carry of a 1-bit into the next left position.

Example

Decimal Binary

60 00111100

+42 00101010

102 01100110

A negative binary value is expressed in two's complement

notation. According to this rule, to convert a binary number to its
negative value is to reverse its bit values and add 1.