Computer Architecture # 04 : The Instruction Set Architecture

In this chapter we tackle a central topic in computer architecture: the language understood by the computer’s hardware, referred to as its machine language. The machine language is usually discussed in terms of its  assembly language, which is functionally equivalent to the corresponding machine language except

that the assembly language uses more intuitive names such as Move, Add, and Jump instead of the actual binary words of the language. (Programmers find constructs such as “Add r0, r1, r2” to be more easily understood and rendered without error than 0110101110101101.). 

We begin by describing the  Instruction Set Architecture  (ISA) view of the machine and its operations. The ISA view corresponds to the Assembly Language/Machine Code level described in Figure 1-4: it is between the High Level Language view, where little or none of the machine hardware is visible or of concern, and the Control level, where machine instructions are interpreted as register transfer actions, at the Functional Unit level.

In order to describe the nature of assembly language and assembly language programming, we choose as a model architecture the ARC machine, which is a simplification of the commercial SPARC architecture common to Sun computers. (Additional architectural models are covered in The Computer Architecture Companion volume.)

We illustrate the utility of the various instruction classes with practical examples of assembly language programming, and we conclude with a Case Study of the Java bytecodes as an example of a common, portable assembly language that can be implemented using the native language of another machine.

4.1 Hardware Components of the Instruction Set Architecture

The ISA of a computer presents the assembly language programmer with a view of the machine that includes all the programmer-accessible hardware, and the instructions that manipulate data within the hardware. In this section we look at the hardware components as viewed by the assembly language programmer. We begin with a discussion of the system as a whole: the CPU interacting with its internal (main) memory and performing input and output with the outside world.