Lecture#01
Computer Organization & Assembly
Language
Muhammad Wisal Khan
Outline
• The Components of a Microcomputer System
• Memory
• The CPU
• I/O Ports.
• Instruction Execution
• I/O Devices
• Programming Languages
• An Assembly Language Program
The Components of a Microcomputer System
• Memory
• RAM: can be read and written, Consist of program instruction and data
• ROM: Read only, store system programs(firmware).
• Suppose a processor uses 20 bits for an address. How many memory bytes can be accessed?
• The CPU
• I/O Ports.
Memory Operations
• Buses: A processor communicates with memory and l/O by using signals
that travel along a set of wires or connections called buses that connect the
different comp0nents
• Data Bus
• Address Bus
• Control Bus
The CPU:8086 Microprocessor
• 8086 Microprocessor is divided into two functional units
• EU (Execution Unit)
• BIU (Bus Interface Unit).
EU (Execution Unit)
• Execution unit gives instructions to BIU stating from where to
fetch the data and then decode and execute those instructions.
• Its function is to control operations on data using the
instruction decoder & ALU.
• EU has no direct connection with system buses as shown in the
above figure, it performs operations over data through BIU.
EU (Execution Unit)
• ALU
It handles all arithmetic and logical operations, like +, −, ×, /, OR, AND, NOT
operations.
• Flag Register
It is a 16-bit register changes its status according to the result stored in the
accumulator. It has 9 flags and they are divided into 2 groups − Conditional
Flags and Control Flags.
Flag Register
• Conditional Flags
It represents the result of the last arithmetic or logical instruction executed..
• Auxiliary flag − When an operation is performed at ALU, it results in a carry/barrow from lower nibble
(i.e. D0 – D3) to upper nibble (i.e. D4 – D7), then this flag is set, (BCD conversion).
• Parity flag − This flag is used to indicate the parity of the result, i.e. when the lower order 8-bits of the
result contains even number of 1’s, then the Parity Flag is set.
• Zero flag − This flag is set to 1 when the result of arithmetic or logical operation is zero else it is set to 0.
• Sign flag − This flag holds the sign of the result, i.e. when the result of the operation is negative, then
the sign flag is set to 1 else set to 0.
• Overflow flag − This flag represents the result when the system capacity is exceeded.
Flag Register
• Control Flags: Control flags controls the operations of the execution unit.
• Trap flag − It is used for single step control and allows the user to execute one instruction
at a time for debugging. If it is set, then the program can be run in a single step mode.
• Interrupt flag − It is an interrupt enable/disable flag, i.e. used to allow/prohibit the
interruption of a program. It is set to 1 for interrupt enabled condition and set to 0 for
interrupt disabled condition.
• Direction flag − It is used in string operation. As the name suggests when it is set then
string bytes are accessed from the higher memory address to the lower memory address
and vice-a-versa.
General Purpose Register
• There are 8 general purpose registers, i.e., AH, AL, BH, BL, CH, CL, DH, and DL
• These registers can be used individually to store 8-bit data and can be used in
pairs to store 16bit data.
• The valid register pairs are AH and AL, BH and BL, CH and CL, and DH and DL.
• It is referred to the AX, BX, CX, and DX respectively.
General Purpose Register
• AX register − It is also known as accumulator register. It is used to store operands for
arithmetic operations.
• BX register − It is used as a base register. It is used to store the starting base address of
the memory area within the data segment.
• CX register − It is referred to as counter. It is used in loop instruction to store the loop
counter.
• DX register − This register is used to hold I/O port address for I/O instruction.
• Stack pointer register-It is a 16-bit register, which holds the address from the start of
the segment to the memory location, where a word was most recently stored on the
stack.
BIU (Bus Interface Unit)
• BIU takes care of all data and addresses transfers on the
buses for the EU like sending addresses, fetching instructions
from the memory,
• Reading data from the ports and the memory as well as
writing data to the ports and the memory.
• EU has no direction connection with System Buses so this is
possible with the BIU.
• EU and BIU are connected with the Internal Bus.
BIU (Bus Interface Unit)
• Instruction queue − BIU contains the instruction queue. BIU gets up to 6 bytes of next
instructions and stores them in the instruction queue.
• When EU executes instructions and is ready for its next instruction, then it simply
reads the instruction from this instruction queue resulting in increased execution
speed.
• Fetching the next instruction while the current instruction executes is
called pipelining.
• Segment register − BIU has 4 segment buses, i.e. CS, DS, SS& ES. It holds the addresses
of instructions and data in memory, which are used by the processor to access
memory locations. It also contains 1 pointer register IP, which holds the address of the
next instruction to executed by the EU.
BIU (Bus Interface Unit)
• CS − It stands for Code Segment. It is used for addressing a memory location in the
code segment of the memory, where the executable program is stored.
• DS − It stands for Data Segment. It consists of data used by the program and is
accessed in the data segment by an offset address or the content of other register
that holds the offset address.
• SS − It stands for Stack Segment. It handles memory to store data and addresses
during execution.
• ES − It stands for Extra Segment. ES is additional data segment, which is used by the
string to hold the extra destination data.
I/O devices
• I/O devices are connected to the computer through I/O circuits.
• Each of these circuits contains several registers called I/O ports.
• Some are used for data while others are used for control commands.
• Like memory locations, the I/O ports have addresses and arc connected to the bus
system.
• However, these addresses are known as I/O addresses and can only be used in input
or output instructions.
• This allows the CPU to distinguish between an I/O port and a memory location.
• I/O ports function as transfer points between the CPU and I/O devices.
• Data to be Input from I/O device are stent to inport where they can . be read by the
CPU. On output, the CPU writes data to an 1/0 port. The 1/0 circuit then transmits the
data to the 1/0 device.
