Microprocessors and Microcontrollers

What is Machine Language in Microprocessor and Microcontroller?: Programmers write instructions in various programming languages. Some programs are directly understand­able by the computer and other programs require intermediate translation steps. Nowadays hundreds of com­puter languages are available for use in solving different problems. These programming languages are clas­sified into three general types namely, Machine language, […]

What is Core Processor?: What is Core Processor? – The Chip-level Multiprocessor (CMP) or multi-core CPU merges two or more independent cores into a single package integrated circuit, called a die. A processor with two or more cores on a single die is called a monolithic processor. A multi-core microprocessors provides multiprocessing in a single

What is Risc Processors?: What is Risc Processors? – In the previous sections, CISC processors were discussed elaborately. CISC is pronounced sisk, and it stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer. Most desktop computers and laptops use CPUs based on this archi­tecture. Usually, CISC ICs have a large amount of different and complex instructions. The philosophy

Architecture of Pentium 4 Processor: The simplified block diagram of internal architecture of Pentium 4 Processor is shown in Fig. 12.60 and the detailed internal architecture of Pentium 4 is depicted in Fig. 12.61. Generally, the Architecture of Pentium 4 Processor consists of a Bus Interface Unit (BIU), Instruction Fetch and Decoder Unit, Trace Cache

Features of Pentium 4 Processor: The Pentium 4 processor was developed by Intel using Intel Netburst architecture in 2000. It was commonly used in desktop and laptop central processing units (CPUs). It is the 7th generation x 86 micro-architecture, called NetBurst. NetBurst differed from the preceding P6 family (6th generation x 86 micro-architecture) pro­cessors by

Pentium Pro, Pentium II and Pentium III Processors: Pentium Pro The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 microprocessor and it was introduced by Intel in 1995. This processor was developed based on the P6 micro-architecture. The Pentium and Pentium MMX processors have 3.1 and 4.5 million transistors respectively, but the Pentium Pro consists of 5.5

Pentium MMX Processor: Pentium MMX Processor – MMX stands for Multimedia Extension, Multiple Math Extension, or Matrix Math Extension. The MMX is a Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instruction and it was designed by Intel in 1996. The MMX TM technology has the following new extensions in Intel Architecture 32-bit Pentium processor: It has eight

Cache Memory in Pentium Processor: Cache Memory in Pentium Processor – Pentium processors operate at very high clock speeds to provide very good performance. But reading and writing memory off-chip is much slower than accessing CPU registers on-chip. Therefore, the access time of the memory in a system has a critical effect on the system’s

What is System Management Mode (SMM) of the Pentium Processor? In system management mode, the high power is used up by the Pentium processors. In this mode, the Pentium processors use SMI# (input) and SMIACT# (output) signals. The Pentium can only leave SMM after execu­tion of RSM instruction. In SMM, the SMI# is used as

Pentium Bus Interfacing: Pentium Bus Interfacing – The Pentium processor has a 64-bit data bus which increases data transfer rates over previous generation processors, and the processor bus is used for connection to a fast L2-cache. The Pentium processor is able to address bytes, word’s and double words as processor instruction set supports bytes, words