Chapter -0

Introduction to computer
organization

Reference: Lyla B. Das, Embedded Systems: An Integrated Approach , Pearson

Computer
System Bus
System Bus
 Processor

• The sequence of these instruction is called

execution cycle.
• Processor has two parts:
– ALU
– Control circuitry
 System Clock
• All activities of the processor is synchronized
with a clock
• A execution cycle may require many clock
cycle.
Memory
Memory Read Cycle
Memory Write Cycle
IO subsystem
 High Level Language
• The high-level languages are much closer to human language.
• A programming language such as C, FORTRAN or Pascal that en-
ables to write programs which is understandable to programmer
(Human) and can perform any sort of task.
• High level language must use interpreter, compiler or translator to
convert human understandable program to computer readable code
(machine code).

Examples:
COBOL Business applications
FORTRAN Engg & Scientific Applications
PASCAL General use and as a teaching tool
C & C++ General Purpose – currently most popular.
PROLOG Artificial Intelligence
JAVA General all purpose programming
.NET General or web applications.
 Advantages of High over Low level language
• The main advantage of high-level languages over low-level lan-
guages is that they are easier to read, write and maintain.
• High-level languages make complex programming simpler.
• High level programming techniques are applicable everywhere even
where computational resources are limited.
• Error ratio is less in high level language and debugging (locate and
correct errors in program code ) is easier.
• Length of the program is also small compared with low level.
• Many real time problems can be easily solved with high level lan-
guage.
 Assembly Language
• A computer low level language that deals with hardware registers by
name known as assembly language.
• Assembly language is the best example of low level language, this is
in between machine language and high-level language.
• A low-level language does not need a compiler or interpreter to run
the program, the processor run low-level code directly.
 Assembly Language
• Assembly languages enable a programmer to use names instead of
numbers.
• Programmers still use assembly language when speed is essential or
when they need to perform an operation that isn't possible in a high-
level language.
• It uses mnemonic codes (short forms) for instructions and allows the
programmer to introduce names for blocks of memory that hold data.

Example:
mov edx, [esp+8]
cmp edx,
 Machine language

• Machine code or machine language is a system of instructions and data executed di-
rectly by a computer's CPU, The lowest-level programming language that only
be understood by computers.
• Computer language that is directly executable by a computer without the need for
translation by a compiler or an assembler.
• The native language of the computer, The set of symbolic instructions in binary
that is used to represent operations and data in a machine called machine code
 Program code converters
INTERPRETER: Interpreter can convert a source code , usually on a step-by-step,
line-by-line and unit-by-unit basis into machine code.

COMPILER: Compiler is a program that compile source code into executable instruc-
tions that a computer can understand, it check the entire program for Syntex and
semantic errors.

ASSEMBLER: Assembler normally converts assembly language’s source code into

machine language.

TRANSLATOR: Translator is a computer program that translates one programming

language instruction(s) into another programming language instruction(s)
RISC and CISC
 RISC and CISC
• when it comes to understanding and designing
microprocessor architectures, three concepts
are in center:
– Instruction Set, RISC and CISC. 
 Instruction set
• There are certain instructions that the CPU knows and when
we give them those instructions, different transistors inside it
switch ON and OFF to perform those instruction.
• The instructions that we input are in the form of 1’s and 0’s, or
opcode.
• we generally use shorthand’s for those instructions, called
assembly language, and a assembler converts it into opcode.
• The number of instructions that a particular CPU can have is
limited and the collection of all those instructions is called the
Instruction Set.
• The Instruction Set is very important. A proper design of
hardware and instruction set can determine how fast the CPU
is.
 CPU Performance
• The performance of a CPU is the number of programs
it can run in a given time. The more the number of
programs it can run in that time, the faster the CPU is.

• The performance is determined by the number of

instructions that a program has: more instructions,
more time to perform them. It also depends upon the
number of cycles (clock cycles) per instructions.
• This means that there are only two ways to
improve the performance:
– Either minimize the number of instructions per
program,
– or reduce the number of cycles per instruction.
 CISC ARCHITECTURE
• CISC is the shorthand for Complex Instruction
Set Computer.
• The CISC architecture tries to reduce the
number of Instructions that a program has,
thus optimizing the Instructions per Program
part of the above equation.
• This is done by combining many simple
instructions into a single complex one.
 Example: MUL instruction
• This instruction takes two inputs: the memory
location of the two numbers to multiply, it
then performs the multiplication and stores
the result in the first memory location.
MUL 1200, 1201

• This reduces the amount of work that the

compiler has to do as the instructions
themselves are very high level.
• The instructions take very little memory in the
RAM and most of the work is done by the
hardware while decoding instructions.

• Since in a CISC style instruction, the CPU has to do

more work in a single instruction, so clock speeds
are slightly slower.

• Moreover, the number of general purpose

registers are less as more transistors need to be
used to decode the instructions.
 RISC ARCHITECTURE
• Reduced Instruction Set Computer or RISC
architectures have more instructions, but they
reduce the number of cycles that an
instruction takes to perform.

• Generally, a single instruction in a RISC

machine will take only one CPU cycle.
• Multiplication in a RISC architecture cannot be done
with a single MUL like instruction.

• Instead, we have to first load the data from the

memory using the LOAD instruction, then multiply the
numbers, and the store the result in the memory.
– Load A, 1200
– Load B, 1201
– Mul A, B
– Store 1200, A

• in RISC architectures, we can only perform operations

on Registers and not directly on the memory.
• This might seem like a lot of work, but in reality, since each of
these instructions only take up one clock cycle, the whole
multiplication operation is completed in fewer clock cycles.

• RISC has simpler instruction sets, complex High-Level

Instructions needs to be broken down into many instructions by
the compiler.

• This puts a lot of stress on the software and the software

designers, while reducing the work needed to be done by the
hardware.

• The decoding logic is simple, transistors required are lesser and

more number of general purpose registers can be fit into the
CPU.
 comparison
• CISC tries to complete an action in as few lines of
assembly code as possible, RISC tries to reduce
the time taken for each instruction to execute.
• the MUL operation on two 8-bit numbers in the
register, in 8086 which is a CISC device can take
as much as 77 clock-cycles, whereas the
complete multiplication operation in a RISC
device like a PIC takes only 38 cycles
• Since CISC instructions take a more number of
cycles to execute, parallelism and pipelining of
instructions is much harder. In RISC however,
since all instructions take one cycle, pipelining
instructions is easier.
• the compiler plays an important role in RISC
systems, and its ability to perform this “code
expansion” can hinder performance.
 Final word: which is better
• CISC is most often used in automation devices whereas RISC is
used in video and image processing applications.

• When microprocessors and microcontroller were first being

introduced, they were mostly CISC. This was largely because
of the lack of software support present for RISC development.

• Later a few companies started delving into the RISC

architecture, most notable, Apple, but most companies were
unwilling to risk it (pun intended) with an emerging
technology.
1. Number Systems
 Common Number Systems
Used by Used in
System Base Symbols humans? computers?
Decimal 10 0, 1, … 9 Yes No
Binary 2 0, 1 No Yes
Octal 8 0, 1, … 7 No No
Hexa- 16 0, 1, … 9, No No
decimal A, B, … F
Quantities/Counting (1 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1
2 10 2 2
3 11 3 3
4 100 4 4
5 101 5 5
6 110 6 6
7 111 7 7
Quantities/Counting (2 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
8 1000 10 8
9 1001 11 9
10 1010 12 A
11 1011 13 B
12 1100 14 C
13 1101 15 D
14 1110 16 E
15 1111 17 F
Quantities/Counting (3 of 3)
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
16 10000 20 10
17 10001 21 11
18 10010 22 12
19 10011 23 13
20 10100 24 14
21 10101 25 15
22 10110 26 16
23 10111 27 17 Etc.
 Conversion Among Bases
• The possibilities:

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Quick Example

2510 = 110012 = 318 = 1916

Base
Decimal to Decimal (just for fun)

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Weight

12510 => 5 x 100 = 5

2 x 101 = 20
1 x 102 = 100
125

Base
 Binary to Decimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Binary to Decimal
• Technique
– Multiply each bit by 2n, where n is the “weight” of
the bit
– The weight is the position of the bit, starting from
0 on the right
– Add the results
 Example
Bit “0”

1010112 => 1 x 20 = 1
1 x 21 = 2
0 x 22 = 0
1 x 23 = 8
0 x 24 = 0
1 x 25 = 32
4310
 Octal to Decimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Octal to Decimal
• Technique
– Multiply each bit by 8n, where n is the “weight” of
the bit
– The weight is the position of the bit, starting from
0 on the right
– Add the results
 Example

7248 => 4 x 80 = 4
2 x 81 = 16
7 x 82 = 448
46810
Hexadecimal to Decimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Hexadecimal to Decimal
• Technique
– Multiply each bit by 16n, where n is the “weight”
of the bit
– The weight is the position of the bit, starting from
0 on the right
– Add the results
 Example

ABC16 => C x 160 = 12 x 1 = 12

B x 161 = 11 x 16 = 176
A x 162 = 10 x 256 = 2560
274810
 Decimal to Binary

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Decimal to Binary
• Technique
– Divide by two, keep track of the remainder
– First remainder is bit 0 (LSB, least-significant bit)
– Second remainder is bit 1
– Etc.
 Example
12510 = ?2 2 125
2 62 1
2 31 0
2 15 1
2 7 1
2 3 1
2 1 1
0 1

12510 = 11111012
 Octal to Binary

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Octal to Binary
• Technique
– Convert each octal digit to a 3-bit equivalent
binary representation
 Example
7058 = ?2

7 0 5

111 000 101

7058 = 1110001012
Hexadecimal to Binary

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Hexadecimal to Binary
• Technique
– Convert each hexadecimal digit to a 4-bit
equivalent binary representation
 Example
10AF16 = ?2

1 0 A F

0001 0000 1010 1111

10AF16 = 00010000101011112
 Decimal to Octal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Decimal to Octal
• Technique
– Divide by 8
– Keep track of the remainder
 Example
123410 = ?8

8 1234
8 154 2
8 19 2
8 2 3
0 2

123410 = 23228
Decimal to Hexadecimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Decimal to Hexadecimal
• Technique
– Divide by 16
– Keep track of the remainder
 Example
123410 = ?16

16 1234
16 77 2
16 4 13 = D
0 4

123410 = 4D216
 Binary to Octal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Binary to Octal
• Technique
– Group bits in threes, starting on right
– Convert to octal digits
 Example
10110101112 = ?8

1 011 010 111

1 3 2 7

10110101112 = 13278
Binary to Hexadecimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Binary to Hexadecimal
• Technique
– Group bits in fours, starting on right
– Convert to hexadecimal digits
 Example
10101110112 = ?16

10 1011 1011

2 B B

10101110112 = 2BB16
Octal to Hexadecimal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Octal to Hexadecimal
• Technique
– Use binary as an intermediary
 Example
10768 = ?16

1 0 7 6

001 000 111 110

2 3 E

10768 = 23E16
Hexadecimal to Octal

Decimal Octal

Binary Hexadecimal
 Hexadecimal to Octal
• Technique
– Use binary as an intermediary
 Example
1F0C16 = ?8

1 F 0 C

0001 1111 0000 1100

1 7 4 1 4

1F0C16 = 174148
 Exercise – Convert ...
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
33
1110101
703
1AF

Don’t use a calculator!

Skip answer Answer

 Exercise –Answer
Convert …
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
33 100001 41 21
117 1110101 165 75
451 111000011 703 1C3
431 110101111 657 1AF
 Common Powers (1 of 2)
• Base 10 Power Preface Symbol Value
10-12 pico p .000000000001
10-9 nano n .000000001
10-6 micro  .000001
10-3 milli m .001
103 kilo k 1000
106 mega M 1000000
109 giga G 1000000000
1012 tera T 1000000000000
 Common Powers (2 of 2)
• Base 2 Power Preface Symbol Value
210 kilo k 1024

220 mega M 1048576

230 Giga G 1073741824

• What is the value of “k”, “M”, and “G”?

• In computing, particularly w.r.t. memory,
the base-2 interpretation generally applies
Example
In the lab…
1. Double click on My Computer
2. Right click on C:
3. Click on Properties

/ 230 =
 Exercise – Free Space
• Determine the “free space” on all drives on a
machine in the lab
Free space
Drive Bytes GB

A:
C:
D:
E:
etc.
 Review – multiplying powers
• For common bases, add powers
ab  ac = ab+c

26  210 = 216 = 65,536

or…
26  210 = 64  210 = 64k
 Fractions
• Decimal to decimal (just for fun)

3.14 => 4 x 10-2 = 0.04

1 x 10-1 = 0.1
3 x 100 = 3
3.14
 Fractions
• Binary to decimal
10.1011 => 1 x 2-4 = 0.0625
1 x 2-3 = 0.125
0 x 2-2 = 0.0
1 x 2-1 = 0.5
0 x 20 = 0.0
1 x 21 = 2.0
2.6875
 Fractions
• Decimal to binary x
.14579
2
3.14579 0.29158
x 2
0.58316
x 2
1.16632
x 2
0.33264
x 2
0.66528
x 2
1.33056
11.001001... etc.
 Exercise – Convert ...
Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
29.8
101.1101
3.07
C.82
Don’t use a calculator!

Skip answer Answer

 Exercise – Convert …
Answer

Hexa-
Decimal Binary Octal decimal
29.8 11101.110011… 35.63… 1D.CC…
5.8125 101.1101 5.64 5.D
3.109375 11.000111 3.07 3.1C
12.5078125 1100.10000010 14.404 C.82
 BCD, ASCII, Negative Binary
Numbers, Addition, Subtraction
 Unsigned Numbers
• Unsigned number implies that the sign of the
number is irrelevant
• We consider the numbers as having no sign bit
• All the bits allotted for the data are used for
magnitude alone
• Refers to positive numbers
• With 8 bits, numbers from 0 to 255 can be
used
 Representation of Negative Numbers

• Computers use 2’s complement for

representation for negative numbers.
• 2’s complement= complement each bit of
number and add ‘1’ to this.
• Eg 4-bit representation of -6 is
i) Write 4 bit binary value of 6: 0110
ii) Complement each bit: 1001
iii) Add ‘1’ to this: 1010
• So, -6 is ‘1010’, for computers
Negative binary
numbers: 2’s
complement

Flip zeros and

ones and add 1
 Observations
• The range of numbers that can be represented
by 4 bits is -8 to +7.
• For an n-bit number, this range is (-2n-1 ) to
(+2n-1-1).
• The most significant bit (MSB) is considered as
sign bit. The MSB for positive numbers is ‘0’
and for negative numbers is ‘1’.
• There is a unique representation for 0.
Q) Find 2’s complement number corresponding
to -6 when 6 is represented in 8 bits as
0000 0110.
A) Steps:
Write 8bit binary value of 6 (as given): 0000 0110
Complement each bit: 1111 1001
Add ‘1’ to this: 1111 1010
F A H

Thus, -6 is FAH in 8- bit form, while it is AH in 4-bit

form ( where H is notation for ‘hexadecimal’)
 Conversion from 2’s complement form

Given 2’s complement representation of a decimal

number, how do we find the decimal number
which it represents?
A) Take its 2’s complement again.
Eg. Given 2’s complement is 1110. What decimal
number it represents?
B) 2’s complement of 1110 is 0010. (which is 2)
Thus, 1110 is the negative representation of -2
 Another Example
• We know that 1011 is the representation in
binary for -5.
• But if we are only given 1011, how can we
identify that it of magnitude 5?
• Solution is take 2’s complement of 1011.
1011 0100 + 1  0101 which is 5.
 Binary Coded Decimal Numbers
• BCD Numbers
• Binary representation of decimal numbers
• Decimal numbers– 0 to 9 digits

• When we represent one decimal digit as byte,

it is called ‘ Unpacked BCD’.
• Eg. 9 is written as 00001001 in unpacked BCD
 Unpacked BCD
• Eg. 98 in unpacked BCD is represented in two
bytes (one byte for each digit)
9 8
00001001 00001000

Thus the binary code of each decimal digit is in

one byte
 Packed BCD
• When each digit is packed into 4 binary digit, it
is packed BCD.
Eg. 98 in packed BCD is represented in four
digits
9 8
1001 1000
• Packed BCD form of 675 is 0110 0111 0101
• Since there is no digit greater than 9, no BCD
nibble can have a code greater than ‘1001’
BCD numbers in hexadecimal form
• Decimal number 675 when written as 675H
represents the packed BCD, in hex form.
• Steps:
– Write binary equivalent of each decimal number,
as a nibble,
– Write the hex equivalent of each nibble
675 is 0110 0111 0101
6 7 5 H
Note: No digit of BCD in hex form will ever take value of A to F ( as
decimal digits are limited to 9)
Q) Find binary, hex and packed BCD
representation of decimal number 126. Also
write packed BCD in hex format
 Solution
Number 126

Binary 0111 1110

Hex 7EH

BCD 0001 0010 0110

BCD in hex 126H

Q) Find binary, hex and packed BCD
representation of decimal number 245. Also
write packed BCD in hex format
 Solution
Number 245

Binary 1111 0101

Hex F5H

BCD 0010 0100 0101

BCD in hex 245H

Q) Find the packed BCD value of decimal
number 2347654, and represent BCD in hex
format.
A) 2347654
0010 0011 0100 0111 0110 0101 1001
2347654H
 Addition
• Binary
• Hexadecimal
• BCD
• Negative Number
 Binary Addition (1 of 2)
• Two 1-bit values

A B A+ B
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 10
“two”
 Addition of Unsigned Numbers Case1:

• Decimal , binary and hex

0101 1001 Decimal: 89 Hex: 59H

+ 0110 1001 +105 69H
1100 0010 194 C2H

Since the result lies between 0 to 255, there is no

special problem
 Addition of Unsigned Numbers: Case2

Here, extra bit, beyond 8 bits is called ‘carry’. It

indicates the insufficiency of the space allocated for
the result. In microprocessors, there is a flag that
indicates this condition.
 Binary Addition (2 of 2)
• Two n-bit values
– Add individual bits
– Propagate carries
– E.g.,
1 1
10101 21
+ 11001 + 25
101110 46
 Binary addition
10101010 + 11001100 =

110011+001100=
 Binary addition
10101010 + 11001100 = 0101110110

110011+001100= 0111111
 Hexadecimal addition
59H 8ABH 999H
69H B78H ABCDH
----- --------- ---------
C2H 1423H B566H
 Hexadecimal addition
79H 898 FFF
79H ABA EEE
----- --------- ---------
 Hexadecimal addition
79H 898H FFFH
79H ABAH EEEH
----- --------- ---------
F2H 1352H 1EEDH
 Addition of Negative Numbers
• Negative numbers are represented in 2’s
complement notation
Q) Add -43 and -56
A) Calculate 2’s complement of 43 and 56

[ 43= 00101011 , 2’s complement is 1101

0101]
[ 56= 00111000, 2’s complement is 1100 1000]

Now add both of them

 Addition of Negative Numbers

- 43
1101 0101
- 56 + 1100 1000
-99 1 1001 1101

Ignore this carry and look at the eight bits of the

sum.
{ This is the rule for 2’ complement addition}
Also, MSB is ‘1’, represents that result is negative
 Addition of Negative Numbers
But magnitude of result 1001 1101 is not 99 (as we
can see from decimal no. addition)

To find the decimal number whose 2’s complement

representation this is, take 2’s complement of the
result.

This comes to be 0110 0011 ie. 99

 Example1
Q) Add +90 and -26
A) Calculate 2’s complement of 26
[ 26= 00011010 , 2’s complement is 1110 0110]
Now add this in +90
+90 0101 1010
- 26 1110 0110
64 1 0100 0000
Ignore this carry
Also, MSB is ‘0’, represents that result is positive
So, convert it into decimal which comes out to be 64
 Example2
Q) Add -120 and 45
A) Calculate 2’s complement of -120
[ 120 = 01111000 , 2’s complement is 1000 1000]
Now add this in +90
-120 1000 1000
+ 45 0010 1101
-75 1011 0101
There is no carry
Also, MSB is ‘1’, represents that result is negative
So, take 2’s complement. Then result will be 0100 1011 i.e 75. So result is -75
Addition BCD Case:1
 Addition BCD Case:2
When lower nibble of the sum is greater than 9

When upper nibble of the sum is greater than 9

 Addition BCD Case:2
When both lower and upper nibbles of the sum are greater than 9
 Subtraction
• Binary
• Hexadecimal
• BCD
 Subtraction (2 of 3)
• Binary, two 1-bit values

A B A– B
0 0 0
0 1 1 (borrow 1)
1 0 1
1 1 0
Subtraction
 Subtraction

1110 0110 1100 1001

0011 1000 1011 0110
 Subtraction

1110 0110 1100 1001

0011 1000 1011 0110
1010 1110 0001 0011
 Hexadecimal subtraction
E6H 898 ABC
38H ABA 12D
----- --------- ---------
AEH -222 98F
Hexadecimal subtraction
ABCH FAC
4FDH DEA
--------- ---------
Hexadecimal subtraction
ABCH FAC
4FDH DEA
--------- ---------
5BF 1C2
 Subtraction
• Binary, Decimal and Hexadecimal
 Subtraction
• Packed BCD First Step

Second Step
Third Step
 BCD subtraction in 9’s compliment method.

• Here the method is very simple. At first the

decimal equivalent of the given Binary Coded
Decimal (BCD) codes are found out.
• Then the 9’s compliment of the subtrahend is
done and then that result is added to the
number from which the subtraction is to be
done.
• If there is any carry bit then the carry bit may
be added to the result of the subtraction.
Let (0101 0001) − (0010 0001)
More examples
 ASCII
• American Standard Code for Information
Interchange.
• It is a 7-bit code/ 8-bit code, which is written
as a byte.
• This is the code used when entering data
through keyboard and displaying text on the
video display.
 ASCII
• It has representation for numbers, lower case
and upper case English alphabets, special
characters (like #, ^ . &) and control characters.

• When we type a character on the keyboard, it

is ASCII value of the key that is read in. The
computer must convert it from this form to
binary form, for processing.