Assembly Language Syntax and Structure
This is used in assembly language to mark the beginning of a section of code that tells the assembler what kind of data will be used.
What is a .data directive?
This instruction type directly manipulates the contents of a register in assembly language.
What is a register instruction?
RISC architectures emphasize this kind of instruction execution, which is often a hallmark of their efficiency.
What is single-cycle execution?
In assembly language, this instruction is used to move data from one register to another.
What is a MOV instruction?
This company originally developed the ARM architecture in the 1980s as a project for a personal computer, marking the start of ARM's evolution.
What is Acorn Computers?
In assembly language, this register typically holds the address of the next instruction to execute.
What is the program counter (PC)?
This instruction type transfers control to another part of the program in assembly.
What is a jump (JMP) or branch instruction?
In CISC architectures, this type of instruction is common and contrasts with RISC's simpler instructions.
What is a multi-step instruction?
This type of data is represented directly in an assembly instruction, such as a number in an operation
What is an immediate value?
These types of instructions are commonly used in DSPs for operations like multiplying, adding, and accumulating results into a running sum, which significantly improves performance in signal processing algorithms.
What is Multiply-Accumulate (MAC)?
This type of instruction in assembly language is used to compare two values.
What is a CMP instruction?
This is the term for an operation that combines two values and stores the result in one of the operands.
What is an arithmetic instruction?
This register in a RISC processor is used to return to the calling function in many assembly programs.
What is the link register (LR)?
This is the term for the process of saving the state of a program (e.g., registers) before making a function call.
What is pushing to the stack?
In the ARM architecture, this instruction set was introduced in 1994 and is still used in modern ARM processors for backward compatibility and general-purpose computing.
What is ARMv4?
In many assembly languages, this instruction is used to load data from memory into a register.
What is a LOAD instruction?
In assembly, this instruction is used to perform logical operations, such as AND or OR, between two registers.
What is a logical instruction?
In contrast to RISC, CISC processors tend to have this kind of instruction set.
What is a more complex or larger instruction set?
In assembly, this term refers to the memory location that holds the address of the next function or instruction.
What is the return address?
This architecture, introduced with ARMv8, expanded the register file to 31 64-bit registers, eliminated the need for the PC and SP to be part of the general-purpose registers, and streamlined many aspects of the instruction set for improved performance and memory access.
What is ARMv8?
This term refers to a placeholder used in assembly language to represent a memory location.
What is a label?
This is the instruction used in assembly to divide two values.
What is a DIV instruction?
This is an example of a processor family that follows the RISC architecture.
What is ARM?
This term refers to an unscheduled function call that causes the processor to branch to a new address, often triggered by hardware or software events like I/O devices or program errors.
What is an exception?
This type of instruction allows a single operation to process multiple data elements in parallel, commonly used in graphics processing to perform arithmetic operations on packed data such as pixels or 3D coordinates.
What is SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data)?