HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITT ZU BERLIN

INSTITUT FR INFORMATIK

COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
Lecture 9

MICROPROGRAMMED CONTROL UNIT

Sommersemester 2002 Leitung: Prof. Dr. Miroslaw Malek
www.informatik.hu-berlin.de/rok/ca

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MICROPROGRAMMED CONTROL UNIT

Microprogramming is an orderly method of designing the control unit of a conventional computer (Wilkes 1951). The term icroprogramming is based on the analogy between sequence of transfer required to execute a machine instruction and the sequence of individual instructions in conventional user program.

Each step is called microinstruction and complete set of steps required to process a machine instruction is called the microprogram.

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BASIC LAYOUT OF A MICROPROGRAMMED CONTROL UNIT

Control memory stores a microprogram corresponding to each op-code of a conventional instruction. IR Op Control memory Address OR Control address register Conditions FFs

Microinstruction register Micro op Address

Decoder

Control signal to various functional subunits

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Control sequence for execution of the instruction "Add contents of a memory location addressed in absolute mode to register R1." Step Action 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set carry-in to ALU, Add, Zin Zout, PCin, Wait for MFC MDRout, IRin Address-field-of-IRout, MARin, Read R1out, Yin, Wait for MFC MDRout , Add, Zin Zout , R1in, End

BASIC EXECUTION SEQUENCE

Control sequence for an unconditional branch instruction. Step Action 1 2 3 4 5 6 PCout, MARin, Read, Clear Y, Set carry-in to ALU, Add, Zin Zout, PCin, Wait for MFC MDRout, IRin PCout, Yin Address-field-of-IRout , Add, Zin Zout , PCin, End
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MICROCODE EXECUTION
1. Op-code is decoded. 2. Microinstructions are retrieved from control memory (control address register and the decoder serve as the address register and selection mechanism or control unit). 3. The control address register locates the microinstruction to be retrieved from control memory. 4. The microinstruction register holds the retrieved microinstruction - micro opcode and address of the next microinstruction in the control memory 5. Current microinstruction is executed. 6. The address of the next microinstruction is entered into the control memory to retrieve the next microinstruction. 7. If all microinstructions were executed, then store next op-code of conventional instruction in the control address register, if not, execute remaining microinstruction. 8. Conditional jumps are implemented by letting the states of some conditional flip-flops modify the address of the next microinstruction to be retrieved. CA - IX - MCU - 5

WILKES' IMPLEMENTATION OF MICROPROGRAM CONTROL (1951)

Matrix A Decoding tree Timing pulse Control lines to gates in arithmetic unit, control registers, etc. Matrix B

Control address register Delay

Address for next microinstruction From conditional flipflop

From operation field of microinstruction register

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VARIATIONS IN WILKES' IMPLEMENTATION

1. Microinstruction address selection. 2. Instruction set strategies (control word organization).

Ad 1. Possible modifications to address selection:

1) The control address register is modified to function as a counter when the next microinstruction follows the current address and as a register when a branch is required (similar to Wilkes' scheme). - control address acts as a counter or a register 2) Addition of a register to hold the address of the next microinstruction (PC). 3) Control memory may be organized in two storage matrices each with its own decoding tree, thus providing faster operation at lower cost, since the size of the decoder is reduced.

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MICROPROGRAMMED CONTROL UNIT WITH A MICROPROGRAM COUNTER (PC)

IR Opcode
AC = 0 AC < 0 MQ(n-1) COUNT=n-2 V K MUX Branch address Load branch address

Instruction register Decoding circuits

Increment Reset

PC 8

Condition select

Control memory (256 x 36 bits) 3 8 36 CMDR 25 Control signals

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MICROPROGRAMMED CONTROL UNIT WITH TWO STORAGE MATRICES

IR
Op-code

Control-address register Control memory (address) matrix

Control memory read register

Control memory (command) matrix

Control signals

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VARIATIONS IN WILKES' IMPLEMENTATION

Ad 2. Variations on control organisation
1) No encoding
0 1 2 Control fields 13

Control lines

2) Some encoding
0

Control fields 1

Decoder 0

Decoder 1 Control lines

Decoder 2

3) Complete encoding
Single control field

Decoder Control lines

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Nanodata's Computer
Bus 1 Bus 2 Bus 3 Shifter Main memory (256 x 18 bits) Main ALU Bus 1 Bus 5 Bus 6 Bus 7 Bus 10 Bus 8 Bus 9

32 18-bit general registers (local store)

Secondary (index) ALU

32 18-bit external registers (ext. store)

I/O devices
Bus 12

Control signals

Bus 11

32 6-bit registers (F store)

NSDR

360
Control memory 2 (nano store) Branch address

Control memory 1 (control store)

10

10
nPC

Nanoprogram counter

Page address

7
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EXAMPLE OF IBM FORMATS

90-bit microinstruction format of the IBM S/360 Model 50
0 1 6 19 30

CM addressing information Parity of bits 0 to 30 31

Unused 56

60

Parity of bits 32 to 55 61 65 68

Parity of bits 57 to 89 83 89 CM addressing information horizontal vs. vertical

= Control fields

Unused

32-bit microinstruction format of the IBM S/370 Model 145

0 control field (op-code) 8 Operand 1 16 Operand 2 24 31

CM addressing information

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SIZE OF CONTROL STORE VS. WIDTH OF MICROINSTRUCTIONS

DEC VAX (Models 730, 750, 780) IBM 370 (Models 135, 145, 155, 165) IBM 360 (Models 30, 40, 50, 65)

Control store size (Kbits)

500 730 (16Kx24) 135 (24Kx16) 300 40 (4Kx52) 200 30 (4Kx50) 0 20 40 60 145 (12Kx32) 155 (6Kx69)

750 (6Kx80)

165 (4Kx105) 780 (4Kx105)

400

65 (2.75Kx87) 50 (2.75Kx85)

100

80

100

Microinstruction width (bits)

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SUMMARIZING
Next address of microcode execution may be specified by: 1) Address field of the current microinstruction 2) PC (microprogam counter) 3) Address from address control store

Microinstruction formats: 1) No encoding 2) Some encoding 3) Complete encoding

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FIRMWARE ENGINEERING = MICROPROGRAMMING + ...

Practical application of scientific knowledge in the design and construction of microprograms. Firmware engineering, in analogy to software engineering, covers specification and design of microprograms, construction techniques, debugging, testing, verification and maintenance. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT PERIODS Engineering practice during microcode design: 1) Specification (what is to be accomplished; at what cost) 2) Construction (microassemblers, HLLs for firmware are needed, difficulty of counting HLL-microcode) 3) Verification 4) Testing 5) Debugging 6) Maintenance Earlier it was thought that firmware would narrow hardware/software gap; what happened it introduced two gaps:

HARDWARE

FIRMWARE

SOFTWARE

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DESIGN OF MICROPROGRAMS (FIRMWARE)

1) SPECIFICATION - What is to be accomplished and at what cost? 2) CONSTRUCTION - there are no widely accepted HLLs for microprogramming - microassembler is used - need for HLL-to-microcode translation (very difficult in case of horizontally microprogrammed machine) - microcode optimization is NP(nonpolinomial)-hard problem - microassembler allows to write more understandable and maintainable code. - mnemonic is defined for each microoperation - HLL optimization: minimize size of control memory, execution time and length of control word Microprogram support system is a collection of utilities that supports the construction, debugging, testing and maintenance of microprograms. It has: microassembler, simulator for testing and loading dynamic & static microprograms 3) VERIFICATION - attempts to prove the absence of errors 4) TESTING - attempts to discover errors, easier to test than software because of number of microinstructions is usually not larger than 3000. 5) DEBUGGING - to correct errors, after locating them first 6) MAINTENANCE - repair and updating of microprograms
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ADVANTAGES & APPLICATIONS OF MICROPROGRAMMING

1) THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF CONTROL 2) IMPROVEMENT IN PERFORMANCE a) a high degree of parallelism in data paths e.g., multiple bit microinstructions are performed in one cycle b) a high degree of decision logic (in table search and sorting routines) 3) COMPUTER-SERIES COMPATIBILITY Compatibility of instruction sets between smaller and larger machines of a series, e.g., Intel286, 386, Pentium, IBM Systems/309x, Motorola 68000 series 4) EMULATION Emulation is the combined software/hardware interpretation of the machine instruction of one machine by another. Targets machine architecture is mapped onto the host machine. EMULATOR - a set of microprograms that interpret a particular instruction set or language L1. Computer C1 emulates computer C2 if it can interpret machine language L2.

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ADVANTAGES & APPLICATIONS OF MICROPROGRAMMING (2)

5) MICRODIAGNOSTICS Microprogramming diagnostic routines have allowed refinements and increased the speed of detecting and localizing faults,including error detection and correction of microstorage itself. a) software diagnostics b) hardware diagnostics (test generation methods) c) microdiagnostics 6) SOFTWARE SUPPORT eases programming 7) SPECIAL-PURPOSE DEVICES e.g, special processors for data communication, data aquisition, device controllers 8) DYNAMIC MICROPROGRAMMING This allows routines to be easily microprogrammed. Computer can be restructured to represent any instruction vocabulary by use of writable control memory (WCM). It allows the instruction set of the machine to be changed and be TAILORED to specific applications.
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TAXONOMY OF CONTROL UNITS

CONTROL UNIT Decoder one level decoder simple tree decoder Sequencer Asynchronous control unit Hard wired Fixed counter Fixed counter with variable modulus Flexible counter Ring counter residual control packed Technology nano control Control Store ROM PLA R/W
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dual tree decoder

Synchronous Clocks Microprogrammed Vertical Horizontal

unpacked decoder

PROM

ERROM

EAROM

Technology