March 2018
Beginner
744 pages
26h 5m
English
The core elements of an instruction set architecture include the memory model (word size and how the address space is split), registers, data types, instruction formats, addressing, and instruction types. Even though most computers today have general-purpose register sets and specify operands by combinations of memory and register locations, instructions vary in size, type, format, and the number of operands allowed. Instructions also have strict requirements for the locations of these operands. Operands can be located on the stack, in registers, in memory, or a combination of the three.
Many decisions must be made when ISAs are designed. Larger instruction sets mandate longer instructions, which means a longer fetch and decode ...