Viva questions

1. What is Microprocessor? ans:-It is a program controlled semiconductor device (IC},which fetches, decode and executes instructions. 2. Explain the function of CPU in Microprocessor ans:-A microprocessor controls all functions of the CPU, or central processing unit, of a computer or other digital device. The microprocessor is programmed to give and receive instructions from other components of the device. The system can control everything from small devices such as calculators and mobile phones, to large automobiles. 3. Define Compiler ans:-A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transformssource code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program. 4. Define Interpreter ans:- An interpreter may be a program that either :-executes the source code directly; translates source code into some efficient intermediate representation (code) and immediately executes this; explicitly executes stored precompiled code[1] made by a compiler which is part of the interpreter system. 5. Define Assembler ans:-An assembler is a program that takes basic computer instructions and converts them into a pattern of bits that the computer's processor can use to perform its basic operations. 6. What is Assembly level language? ans:-An assembly language is a low-level programming language for microprocessors. It implements a symbolic representation of the binary machine codes and other constants needed to program a particular CPU architecture. This representation is usually defined by the hardware manufacturer, and is based on mnemonics that symbolize processing steps (instructions), processor registers, memory locations, and other language features. 7. What are Mnemonics? ans:-mnemonics are instructions or commands to perform a particular operation given by user to microprocessor e.g. MOV ,MIV,ADD,SUB, IMUL 8. What is a bus? ans:-Information is transferred between units of the microcomputer by collections of conductors called buses. There will be one conductor for each bit of information to be

passed. e.g., 16 lines for a 16 bit address bus. There will be address, control, and data buses. 9. Distinguish between Microprocessor & Microcontroller. ans:-The microprocessor is a digital integrated circuit device that can be programmed with a series of instructions to perform specified functions on data. But micro controller is a computer on a chip which has memory, input, output on the chip itself. So, microprocessor can perform only few functions but micro controller can perform so many functions. 10. Define address bus, data bus and control bus ans:- ADDRESS BUS:-An address bus is a computer bus (a series of lines connecting two or more devices) that is used to specify a physical address. When a processor or DMA-enabled device needs to read or write to a memory location, it specifies that memory location on the address bus (the value to be read or written is sent on the data bus). The width of the address bus determines the amount of memory a system can address. DATA BUS:-The bus (connections between and with in the CPU, memory, and peripherals) used to carry data. Other connections are the address bus and control signals. The width and clock rate of the data bus determine its data rate (the number of bytes per second it can carry),which is one of the main factors determining the processing power of computer CONTROL BUS:-The control bus (or command bus) transports orders and synchronization signals coming from the control unit and travelling to all other hardware components. It is a bidirectional bus, as it also transmits response signals from the hardware. 11. What is nibble, byte and word Ans:NIBBLE:-In computing, a nibble is a four-bit aggregation or half an octet. A nibble contains 4 bits. BYTE:- The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications. The size of a byte is typically hardware dependent, but the modern de facto standard is 8 bits, as this is a convenient power of 2. WORD:- The most common microprocessors used in personal computers (for instance, the Intel Pentiums and AMD Athlons) are an example of this; their IA-32 architecture is an extension of the original Intel 8086 design which had a word size of 16 bits. 12. What is a register ans:-In computer architecture, a processor register (or general purpose register) is a small amount of storage available on the CPU whose contents can be accessed more quickly than storage available elsewhere. Typically, this specialized storage is not considered part of the normal memory range for the machine. Processor registers are at the top of the

memory hierarchy, and provide the fastest way for a CPU to access data. 13) Why is the data bus bidirectional ans:-Data bus is bi-directional because same bus is used for data transmission from microprocessor to memory location or input/output device and vice versa. That is why data bus is bi-directional 14. Give the features of 8085 microprocessor ans:- 8085: 8-bit microprocessor, Up to 8 MHz, 64 KB RAM, Single voltage, Onchip peripherals, 256 I/O ports, 8080 object-code compatible,40-pin DIP,44-pin PLCC 15. Give the features of 8086 microprocessor 8086: 16-bit microprocessor, 16-bit data bus, Up to 10 MHz, 1 MB RAM, 64K I/O ports,40-pin DIP,56-pin QFP, 44-pin PLCC 16. What is a flag Ans: The flag indicates the condition of the microprocessor as well as controls its operations. A flag register is a flip-flop which indicates some conditions produced by the execution of an instruction or controls certain operations of the EU. A 16-bit flag register in the EU contains nine active flags. Two types of flags: Conditional or status flags: Six flags are conditional flags. They are set or reset by the EU on the basis of the results of some arithmetic operation. 17. What is the function of the accumulator ans:-An accumulator is an 8-bit register that is a part of ALU (Arithmetic-Logic Unit) of a processor. It is used for temporary storage of 8-bit data and to perform arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or logical operations like AND, OR, XOR etc. The result of operation is stored in accumulator. 18. What is stack pointer ans:-The CPU has an automatic program stack. At any given time, the SP holds the 16-bit address of the next free location in the stack. The stack acts like any other stack when there is a subroutine call or on an interrupt. ie. pushing the return address on a jump, and retrieving it after the operation is complete to come back to its original location. There are instructions that push and pull the A and B accumulators and the X and Y index registers. These instructions are often used to preserve program context. 19. What are the advantages of 8086 microprocessor over 8085 ans:-The 8085 is an 8-bit system and the 8086 is a 16-bit system. This difference allows the 8086 system to have a much larger set of operational instructions and can make calculations to more significant places. 20. Define effective address.

ans:-Effective address is the final address generated by offsetting and indexing which is sent to the virtual translation logic. It is the address of the operand in the virtual address space of the process, but not necessarily the address of the operand in the physical address space of the computer. 21. How many segment registers are there in 8086 ans:-4 different types of segments in 8086 : CS(Code Segment)to hold code area, SS(Stack Segment)to run program, DS(Data Segment)to hold data, ES(Extra Segment)to hold large data 22)What are the registers present in internal architecture 8086 ans:-The 8086 had eight (more or less general) 16-bit registers including the stack pointer, but excluding the instruction pointer, flag register and segment registers. Four of them, AX, BX, CX, DX, could also be accessed as twice as many 8-bit registers (see figure) while the other four, BP, SI, DI, SP, were 16-bit only. 23)What are the advantages of overlapping segments ans:24)What is PSW. Give its structure and explain ans:-The current state of the processor is stored in a register called ProcessorStatus Word(PSW).The PSW contains bits which indicate such things as whether the previous arithmetic operations produced a positive, negative or zero result. If a subtract instruction is followed by a "branch on zero" instruction, then the branch will be taken if the PSW indicates that the subtraction resulted in a zero. Most loops, such as DOWHILE, FOR etc involve incrementing or decrementing a counter and repeating the loop until the counter reaches the limit. Each time the counter is changed, the result is compared with the limit, the PSW is set accordingly, and branch is taken or not depending on the contents of the PSW. The 8086 microprocessor has a 16-bit PSW. 25. What is an instruction? ans:-An instruction is an order given to a computer processor by a computer program. At the lowest level, each instruction is a sequence of 0s and 1s that describes a physical operation the computer is to perform (such as "Add") and, depending on the particular instruction type, the specification of special storage areas called registers that may contain data to be used in carrying out the instruction, or the location in computer memory of data. 26. What are different types of instructions. Give examples ans:-There are different instruction types:1. Data Movement:-examples:-{Load,Move,Push,Pop} 2. Logical Operations:-ex:-{And,Or,Xor,Not,Shl,Shr} 3. Arithmetic Operations:-ex:-{Add,Sub,Mulu*,Muls*,Divu*,Divs*}

4. Comparison:-ex:-{Cmp} 5. Flow Control:-ex:-{Bra,Bsr,Rts,Rti} 6. Others:-ex:-{Nop} 27. What are addressing modes ans:-1. Immediate addressing.2. Register addressing.3. Direct addressing.4. Indirect addressing. 28. Give the different type of data related addressing modes and explain with examples. ans:-1. Immediate addressing: Load the immediate data into the register, R Example: MVI R,data 2. Register addressing: Data from source register is moved into destination register. Example: MOV Rd, Rs 3. Direct addressing: Accepts data from external devices to be stored in the accumulator or sends the data from the accumulator to the external device. Example: IN 00H, OUT 01H 29. What are the different types of branch related addressing modes ans:- 1. Intrasegment Direct 2. Intrasegment Indirect 3. Intersegment Direct 4. Intersegment Direct 30. Distinguish between packed BCD and unpacked BCD ans:-Packed BCD numbers are stored two digits to a byte in 4 bit groups referred as nibbles. Ex:86 In unpacked BCD there is only one digit per byte Ex: 08, 06 31. Describe CBW and CWD instructions ans:-The CBW and CWDE mnemonics reference the same opcode. The CBW instruction is intended for use when the operand-size attribute is 16 and the CWDE instruction for when the operand-size attribute is 32. The CWDE instruction is different from the CWD (convert word to double) instruction. The CWD instruction uses the DX:AX register pair as a destination operand; whereas, the CWDE instruction uses the EAX register as a destination. 32)Describe about MUL, IMUL, DIV, IDIV instructions ans:-MUL (multiply) instruction is used for unsigned multiplication. This instruction multiplies bytes or words. IMUL (Integer multiply) instruction is used for signed multiplication. This instruction multiply bytes or words.

The DIV instruction is to divide unsigned data. We can divide a byte by byte, a word by byte, double word by word. The IDIV instruction is to divide signed data. We can divide a byte by byte, a word by byte, double word by word and the operations are just like DIV instructions 33)Describe about LOOP instructions ans:-The LOOP instruction is a combination of a decrement of CX and a conditional jump. In the 8086, LOOP decrements CX and if CX is not equal to zero, it jumps to the address indicated by the label. If CX becomes a 0, the next sequential instruction executes. 34)Give examples of conditional branch instructions ans:-In a loop if there are different jump instructions with a condition or counter called conditional loop and instructions in that loop are called unconditional branch instructions. 35)Give examples of unconditional branch instructions ans:-In a loop if there are different jump instructions with no condition it is called unconditional loop and instructions in that loop are called unconditional branch instructions. 36)What are flag manipulation instructions ? Give examples ans:-Flag manipulation instructions. STC, CLC, CMC. Set, clear, complement carry flag. STD, CLD. Set, clear direction flag 37)Explain about DAA instruction ans:-decimal adjust addition result The daa instruction is used to adjust the content of the AL register after that register is used to perform the addition of two packed BCDs. The CPU uses the following logic CF_old = CF IF (al AND 0Fh > 9) or (the Auxilliary Flag is set) al = al+6 CF = CF or CF_old AF set ENDIF IF (al > 99h) or (Carry Flag is set) al = al + 60h CF set ENDIF 38)Explain shift and rotate instructions

ans:-SHL(SHIFT LEFT):-shifting bit code by no.of bits to left{ex:-00001011 when shifted left by one bit it becomes 00010110}, SHR(SHIFT RIGHT):-shifting bit code by no.of bits to right{ex:-00001011 when shifted left by one bit it becomes 00000101} ROR(ROTATE RIGHT):-rotate bit code from right to left{ex:-00001011 when rotated right by one bit it becomes as 00010110} ROL{ROTATE LEFT}:-rotate bit code from left to right{ex:-00001011 when rotated left by one bit it becomes as 10000101} RCL{ROTATE CARRY TO LEFT}; RCR{ROTATE CARRY TO RIGHT} 39. What are directives. ans:-Assembler directives are instructions to the assembler concerning the program being assembled. 41. Define assembly process ans:-A microprocessor executes a collection of machine instructions that tell the processor what to do is known as assembly process. 42. Define two pass assembler ans:-A two pass assembler does two passes over the source file ( the second pass can be over a file generated in the first pass ). In the first pass all it does is looks for label definitions and introduces them in the symbol table. In the second pass, after the symbol table is complete, it does the actual assembly by translating the operations and so on. 43. What are the advantages of modular programming ans:-Modular programming can be used to break up a large program into manageable units, or to create code that can be easily re-used. Reduce problem to smaller, simpler, humanly comprehensible problems 44. What is linking and relocation ans:- A linker is a program used to join together several object files into one large object file. The linker produces a link file which contains the binary codes for all the combined modules. It also produces a link map which contains the address information about the link files. The linker does not assign absolute addresses but only relative address starting from zero, so the programs are relocatable & can be put anywhere in memory to be run. 45. What is a stack ans:-A stack is a last in, first out (LIFO) abstract data type and data structure. A stack can

have any abstract data type as an element, but is characterized by only two fundamental operations: push and pop. 46. What are stack operated instructions. Explain ans:-The generic use of stack is for, Return address return value ,parameters to called function, local variables in the called function, processor registers that will be reused in the called function. 47. Define Procedure ans:-Procedures are a group of instructions stored as a separate program in memory and it is called from the main program whenever required. The type of procedure depends on where the procedures are stored in memory. If it is in the same code segment as that of the main program then it is a near procedure otherwise it is a far procedure. 48. Explain about CALL and RETURN instructions ans:- CALL 16-bit memory address of a subroutine It is a 3-byte instruction that transfers the program sequence to a subroutine. Saves the content of the PC (Program Counter-16-bit register) , the address of the next instruction, on the stack. Decrements the stack pointer register by 2. Jumps unconditionally to the memory location specified by the 2nd and 3rd bytes. This instruction is accompanied by a RETURN instruction in the subroutine. The return instruction is used either to return a function value or to terminate the execution of a function. The exit may be from anywhere within the function body, including loops or nested blocks. If the function returns a value, the return instruction is required 49. What is recursive procedure? ans:-A recursive procedure is a procedure, which calls itself. Recursive procedures are used to work with complex data structures called trees. If the procedure is called with N=3, then the N is decremented by 1 after each procedure CALL and the procedure is called until N=0. 50. What is an interrupt? Explain ans:-An interrupt is a condition that causes the microprocessor to temporarily work on a different task, and then later return to its previous task. Interrupts can be internal or external. Internal interrupts, or "software interrupts," are triggered by a software instruction and operate similarly to a jump or branch instructionTurbo Assembler (TASM) is an x86 assembler package developed by Borland. It is used with Borland's high-level language compilers, such as Turbo Pascal, Turbo Basic and Turbo C.