Microprocessor basics
Composed of three parts
- data-path: data manipulation and storage
- control: determines sequence of actions executed in data-path and interactions to be had with environment
- interface: signals seen by the environment of the processor
Instruction execution engine: fetch/execute cycle
- flow of control determined by modifications to program counter
- instruction classes:
- data: move, arithmetic and logical operations
- control: branch, loop, subroutine call
- interface: load, store from external memory