WHAT IS MICROPROCESSOR ?

 A Microprocessor is a multipurpose, programmable, clock-driven,

register-based electronic device that reads binary instruction from
a storage device called memory, accepts binary data as input,
process this input data according to the instruction that have been
read and then provides results obtained from this processing as
output.

 So microprocessor is a programmable device that has

computing and decision-making capability. Hence it plays a
significant role in the functionality of industrial societies.

 This programmable logic device can be used to control various

processes and devices. The products that use microprocessor for
controlling its various processes are called Microprocessor-
based products.

 When microprocessor is used in the embedded form of a larger

system and it works as the central processing unit of a computer
,then it is called microcomputer .The communications and
operations in the microprocessors are based on the binary
numbers via 0,1.These are called Bits.
Each microprocessor have a fixed set of instructions which have
different binary patterns .This fixed set of instructions is called
machine language of a microprocessor .These binary
instructions are given some abbreviated names so that human
being can easily understand and use the instructions. These
abbreviated names are called mnemonics and the complete Set
of mnemonics of a microprocessor is called its assembly
language.
 The definition of a microprocessor as illustrated above can be
shown diagrammatically in figure 1.1.
 Thus microprocessor is a device that can be instructed to perform
some given task within its capability. The memory is like the
pages of a notebook which is used to store the instructions given
by the user. The user gives the instructions as well as data (on
which the instructions have to be operated) using the input
devices which are stored in the memory. The input devices can be
a keyboard or simple switches. After getting the input from user
microprocessor reads the instructions from the memory and
processes data according to these instructions .The result is then
displayed using an output device. The output device here can be
any seven -segment displays which uses LEDs (Light Emitting
Diodes) or printer.
INTERNAL MICROPROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE
 Here we will discuss the internal architecture of Intel 8086
microprocessor. It was first 16-bit microprocessor developed by
Intel Company in 1976. It is called 16-bit microprocessor because
it has 16-bit data bus. However it has 20-bit address bus. Because
of this large size of address bus it can address up 1MB of memory.

 After the development of 8086 microprocessor, Intel launch a

series of 86’s microprocessor like 80186, 80286, 80486 etc. Which
are 32-bits processors. This microprocessor is very fast as
compared to the old ones, as microprocessor Whey have reduced
the CPU idle time in system. These microprocessor can execute
can execute the instructions in the speed range of thousand
operations per second.

 A microprocessor execute a program by performing the

following activities again and again -
(a) Fetch the next instruction from memory
(b) Read operand
(c) Execute instruction
(d) Write result
 In the microprocessor before Intel 8086, these steps were
performing serially. But the architecture of 8086 performs
these steps by allocating them to separate processing units
.These are:-

1. Execution unit (EU)

2. Bus Interface unit (BIU)

Execution unit is the unit which executes the

instructions and bus interface unit has the responsibilities
of fetching instructions, read operands, writing result.

These two units operate independently and in most

of circumstances are able to extensively overlap instruction
with fetch executions operation. In these cases, the times
normally required to fetch instructions disappears because
of the execution unit executing instructions that have
already been fetched by the BIU.
However it must be noted that execution unit has no connection
with the system bus. It obtains instructions from queue
maintained by the BIU. Similarly, when an instruction requires
access to memory or to a peripheral device, the EU requests the
BIU to obtain or store the data. Execution unit manipulate the
addresses in only 16-bit wide .Then BIU performs the address
relocation which gives the EU access to the full megabyte of
memory space.
So BIU performs all the bus operations for the EU. Upon the
demand of EU it serves the data between the CPU and memory or
I/O devices. BIU also have an internal RAM array called
Instruction Stream Queue .During the time when EU is busy in
executing the instructions, BIU fetches more instructions from the
memory and store these instruction stream queue. This queue can
store up to 6 instruction bytes at a time.
Various memory registers in an 8086 microprocessor can be
divided into following categories.

1. General Purpose Registers

2. Pointer registers
3. Segment Registers
8086 microprocessor also have some of flags. All these will
be explained in detail now.
 1.2.1. General Purpose Registers
Various general purposes registers are-
(i) Accumulator Register (AX)
(ii) Base Register (BX)
(iii) Counter Register (CX)
(iv) Data Register (DX)

These registers are 16-bit registers. They can either work as 16- bit
registers or as two 8-bit registers as shown below-

ACCUMULATOR - AX is usually constantly changing throughout any

program. This is considered to be one of the most useful register ,8086
also have some other hard-wired connection of AX with other registers like
the XLAT (transaction) instruction of register BX uses AL. The division
,multiplication of DX also uses AL. The instructions for coping part of the
flags registers to / from AH are also available.

BASE REGISTER - BX is mainly used for general storage, but it can also
be used for accessing memory. It is the only general purpose registers that
can also works as a pointer .However unlike SI and DI registers, it does not
work with rep prefix.
COUNTER REGISTER - CX is mainly used for general storage ,
but in addition to this it can also be used as an iteration counter
.The Rep prefix, loop instruction shift and rotate instructions all
take counts passed in CX.

DATA REGISTER- DX is truly used as data storage register only

.DX is also used in division instructions .After 16 -bit division, the
remainder is placed in DX. The DX registers also used with AL
register and the in/out instructions to specify the port number