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Indirection (computing)
Addressing modes are an aspect of the instruction set architecture in most central processing unit (CPU) designs. The various addressing modes that are defined in a given instruction set architecture define how the machine language instructions in that architecture identify the operand(s) of each instruction. An addressing mode specifies how to calculate the effective memory address of an operand by using information held in registers and/or constants contained within a machine instruction or elsewhere. In computer programming, addressing modes are primarily of interest to those who write in assembly languages and to compiler writers. For a related concept see orthogonal instruction set which deals with the ability of any instruction to use any addressing mode. Caveats Note that there is no generally accepted way of naming the various addressing modes. In particular, different authors and computer manufacturers may give different names to the same addressing mode, or the same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instruction Set Architecture
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ''implementation''. In general, an ISA defines the supported instructions, data types, registers, the hardware support for managing main memory, fundamental features (such as the memory consistency, addressing modes, virtual memory), and the input/output model of a family of implementations of the ISA. An ISA specifies the behavior of machine code running on implementations of that ISA in a fashion that does not depend on the characteristics of that implementation, providing binary compatibility between implementations. This enables multiple implementations of an ISA that differ in characteristics such as performance, physical size, and monetary cost (among other things), but that are capable of running the same machine code, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instruction Pipeline
In computer engineering, instruction pipelining or ILP is a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a single processor. Pipelining attempts to keep every part of the processor busy with some instruction by dividing incoming instructions into a series of sequential steps (the eponymous " pipeline") performed by different processor units with different parts of instructions processed in parallel. Concept and motivation In a pipelined computer, instructions flow through the central processing unit (CPU) in stages. For example, it might have one stage for each step of the von Neumann cycle: Fetch the instruction, fetch the operands, do the instruction, write the results. A pipelined computer usually has "pipeline registers" after each stage. These store information from the instruction and calculations so that the logic gates of the next stage can do the next step. This arrangement lets the CPU complete an instruction on each clock cycle. It is common fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drum Memory
Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of the computer. It was so common that these computers were often referred to as ''drum machines''. Some drums were also used as secondary storage as for example various IBM drum storage drives. Drums were displaced as primary computer memory by magnetic core memory, which offered a better balance of size, speed, cost, reliability and potential for further improvements. Drums in turn were replaced by hard disk drives for secondary storage, which were both less expensive and offered denser storage. The manufacturing of drums ceased in the 1970s. Technical design A drum memory or drum storage unit contained a large metal cylinder, coated on the outside surface with a ferromagnetic recording material. It could be considered the precursor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locality Of Reference
In computer science, locality of reference, also known as the principle of locality, is the tendency of a processor to access the same set of memory locations repetitively over a short period of time. There are two basic types of reference locality temporal and spatial locality. Temporal locality refers to the reuse of specific data and/or resources within a relatively small time duration. Spatial locality (also termed ''data locality''"NIST Big Data Interoperability Framework: Volume 1"urn:doi:10.6028/NIST.SP.1500-1r2) refers to the use of data elements within relatively close storage locations. Sequential locality, a special case of spatial locality, occurs when data elements are arranged and accessed linearly, such as traversing the elements in a one-dimensional Array data structure, array. Locality is a type of predictability, predictable behavior that occurs in computer systems. Systems that exhibit strong ''locality of reference'' are great candidates for performance optimiza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basic Block
In compiler construction, a basic block is a straight-line code sequence with no branches in except to the entry and no branches out except at the exit. This restricted form makes a basic block highly amenable to analysis. Compilers usually decompose programs into their basic blocks as a first step in the analysis process. Basic blocks form the vertices or nodes in a control-flow graph. Definition The code in a basic block has: * One entry point, meaning that no code within it is the destination of a jump instruction anywhere in the program. * One exit point, meaning that only the last instruction can cause the program to begin executing code in a different basic block. Under these circumstances, whenever the first instruction in a basic block is executed, the rest of the instructions are necessarily executed exactly once and in order. The code may be source code, assembly code, or some other sequence of instructions. More formally, a sequence of instructions forms a basic blo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Out-of-order Execution
In computer engineering, out-of-order execution (or more formally dynamic execution) is a paradigm used in most high-performance central processing units to make use of instruction cycles that would otherwise be wasted. In this paradigm, a processor executes instructions in an order governed by the availability of input data and execution units, rather than by their original order in a program. In doing so, the processor can avoid being idle while waiting for the preceding instruction to complete and can, in the meantime, process the next instructions that are able to run immediately and independently. History Out-of-order execution is a restricted form of data flow computation, which was a major research area in computer architecture in the 1970s and early 1980s. The first machine to use out-of-order execution was the CDC 6600 (1964), designed by James E. Thornton, which uses a scoreboard to avoid conflicts. It permits an instruction to execute if its source operand (read) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipeline (computing)
In computing, a pipeline, also known as a data pipeline, is a set of data processing elements connected in series, where the output of one element is the input of the next one. The elements of a pipeline are often executed in parallel or in time-sliced fashion. Some amount of buffer storage is often inserted between elements. Computer-related pipelines include: * Instruction pipelines, such as the classic RISC pipeline, which are used in central processing units (CPUs) and other microprocessors to allow overlapping execution of multiple instructions with the same circuitry. The circuitry is usually divided up into stages and each stage processes a specific part of one instruction at a time, passing the partial results to the next stage. Examples of stages are instruction decode, arithmetic/logic and register fetch. They are related to the technologies of superscalar execution, operand forwarding, speculative execution and out-of-order execution. * Graphics pipelines, found in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instruction Prefetch
Instruction or instructions may refer to: Computing * Instruction, one operation of a processor within a computer architecture instruction set * Computer program, a collection of instructions Music * Instruction (band), a 2002 rock band from New York City, US * "Instruction" (song), a 2017 song by English DJ Jax Jones * ''Instructions'' (album), a 2001 album by Jermaine Dupri Other uses * Instruction, teaching or education performed by a teacher * Sebayt, a work of the ancient Egyptian didactic literature aiming to teach ethical behaviour * Instruction, the pre-trial phase of an investigation led by a judge in an inquisitorial system of justice * Instruction manual An owner's manual (also called an instruction manual or a user guide) is an instructional book or booklet that is supplied with almost all technologically advanced consumer products such as vehicles, home appliances and computer peripherals. ..., an instructional book or booklet ** Instruction manual (gaming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Return Statement
In computer programming, a return statement causes execution to leave the current subroutine and resume at the point in the code immediately after the instruction which called the subroutine, known as its return address. The return address is saved by the calling routine, today usually on the process's call stack or in a register. Return statements in many programming languages allow a function to specify a return value to be passed back to the code that called the function. Overview In C and C++, return ''exp''; (where ''exp'' is an expression) is a statement that tells a function to return execution of the program to the calling function, and report the value of ''exp''. If a function has the return type void, the return statement can be used without a value, in which case the program just breaks out of the current function and returns to the calling one. In Pascal there is no return statement. (However, in newer Pascals, the Exit(''exp''); can be used to return a value ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Execution
Addressing modes are an aspect of the instruction set architecture in most central processing unit (CPU) designs. The various addressing modes that are defined in a given instruction set architecture define how the machine language instructions in that architecture identify the operand(s) of each instruction. An addressing mode specifies how to calculate the effective memory address of an operand by using information held in registers and/or constants contained within a machine instruction or elsewhere. In computer programming, addressing modes are primarily of interest to those who write in assembly languages and to compiler writers. For a related concept see orthogonal instruction set which deals with the ability of any instruction to use any addressing mode. Caveats Note that there is no generally accepted way of naming the various addressing modes. In particular, different authors and computer manufacturers may give different names to the same addressing mode, or the same n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Status Register
A status register, flag register, or condition code register (CCR) is a collection of status flag bits for a processor. Examples of such registers include FLAGS register in the x86 architecture, flags in the program status word (PSW) register in the IBM System/360 architecture through z/Architecture, and the application program status register (APSR) in the ARM Cortex-A architecture. The status register is a hardware register that contains information about the state of the processor. Individual bits are implicitly or explicitly read and/or written by the machine code instructions executing on the processor. The status register lets an instruction take action contingent on the outcome of a previous instruction. Typically, flags in the status register are modified as effects of arithmetic and bit manipulation operations. For example, a Z bit may be set if the result of the operation is zero and cleared if it is nonzero. Other classes of instructions may also modify the flags to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Position-independent Code
In computing, position-independent code (PIC) or position-independent executable (PIE) is a body of machine code that, being placed somewhere in the primary memory, executes properly regardless of its absolute address. PIC is commonly used for shared libraries, so that the same library code can be loaded in a location in each program address space where it does not overlap with other memory in use (for example, other shared libraries). PIC was also used on older computer systems that lacked an MMU, so that the operating system could keep applications away from each other even within the single address space of an MMU-less system. Position-independent code can be executed at any memory address without modification. This differs from absolute code, which must be loaded at a specific location to function correctly, and load-time locatable (LTL) code, in which a linker or program loader modifies a program before execution so it can be run only from a particular memory location ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
