What part of a computer is used to store the address of the next instruction to be executed?

The component in the computer used to store the address of the next instruction to be executed is the program counter; the program counter is the place used to store the address of the unit where the next instruction is located; the program counter is a register in the computer processor. It contains the address of the currently executing instruction. As each instruction is fetched, the program counter's storage address is incremented by one.

#The part of the computer used to store the address of the next instruction to be executed is the program counter.

The program counter is where the address of the unit where the next instruction is located is stored.

When executing an instruction, the instruction first needs to be fetched from the memory to the instruction register according to the instruction address stored in the PC. This process is called "instruction fetching". At the same time, the address in the PC is either automatically incremented by 1 or the address of the next instruction is given by the branch pointer. After that, the instructions are analyzed and executed. Complete the execution of the first instruction, and then fetch the address of the second instruction according to the PC, and so on, executing each instruction.

The program counter is a register in a computer processor that contains the address (location) of the instruction currently being executed. As each instruction is fetched, the program counter's memory address is incremented by one. After each instruction is fetched, the program counter points to the next instruction in the sequence. When the computer is restarted or reset, the program counter usually returns to zero.

One of the main contents of von Neumann's computer architecture is "program pre-storage and automatic computer execution"! The programs (instruction sequences) to be executed by the processor are pre-stored in the computer's memory in the form of binary code sequences. The processor fetches these codes into the processor one by one and then decodes and executes them to complete the execution of the entire program. In order to ensure that the program can continue to execute, the CPU must have some means to determine the address of the next fetch instruction. The program counter (PC) plays this role, so it is often called the ‘instruction counter’.

Before the program starts executing, the starting address of the program instruction sequence, that is, the memory unit address where the first instruction of the program is located, is sent to the PC. The CPU reads the first instruction from the memory according to the instructions of the PC. (finger). When executing an instruction, the CPU automatically modifies the contents of the PC. That is, each time an instruction is executed, the PC increases by an amount. This amount is equal to the number of bytes contained in the instruction (the number of instruction bytes), so that the PC always points to the next instruction to be fetched. instruction address. Since most instructions are executed sequentially, the process of modifying the PC is usually simply to add the "number of instruction bytes" to the PC.

When the program is transferred, the final result of the execution of the transfer instruction is to change the value of PC, and this PC value is the target address of the transfer. The processor always fetches, decodes, and executes instructions according to the PC pointer, thus realizing program transfer.

ARM processor uses R15 as PC, which always points to the instruction fetch unit, and there is only one PC register in ARM processor, which is shared by all modes. R15 has a 32-bit width (the following mark is R15[31:0], indicating the '31st bit' to '0th bit' of R15). The ARM processor can directly address the 4GB address space (2^32 = 4G ).

The above is the detailed content of What part of a computer is used to store the address of the next instruction to be executed?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!