ALU, Data Path, and Control Unit

ALU and Data Path Study Notes- The Central processing unit of the system can be
divided into two sections: a Data section and a Control section. The two sections
datapath and control section are discussed below to understand and study for
GATE CSE 
Datapath
The ALU, the registers and the interconnecting buses are connectively referred to
as datapath. Every bit in datapath is functionally identical. The datapath is

competent enough of executing certain operations on data items.

Control Section
The control section is basically referred to as the control unit, whose main goal is
to send control signals to the datapath.
BUS: A Bus is defined as a collection of wires or distinct lines which are meant to
carry address, data and control information.

Data Bus: Used for transmission of data. The number of data lines conforms to
the number of bits in a word.
Address Bus: It contains the address of the data in the main memory location
from where it can accessed.
 Control Bus: It carries control signals like it is used to tell the direction of data
transfer and to coordinate the timing of events during the data transfer.

PC (Program Counter): Holds the address of the next instruction

IR (Instruction Register): Holds the executing instruction
Instruction Cache: ‘Fast’ memory where the next instruction comes from
reg[index].
(Register File): It has 32 registers
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): This part is responsible for performing all arithmetic
and logical operations.
Data Cache: read from or written to ‘Fast’ Memory
Multiplexer: Multiple input selects one output based upon control signal(s).
Single-cycle Data Path: Each instruction executes in one clock cycle
Multi-cycle Data Path: Each instruction takes multiple clock cycle

Single-Cycle Data Path:

 Every cycle must be of equal length
 The cycle time must be long enough to accommodate the longest
instruction.
Multi-Cycle Data Path:
 Have the cycle time coincide with the instruction stage time
 Cycle time= 2 ns (time of the longest stage)
 Between stages, we need registers to hold data for the next stage.

 Accumulator: Special register

o One of the inputs to ALU
o The output of ALU is stored back in the accumulator.
 One-address instructions: Operation and address of one operand
o Another operand and destination is the accumulator register
o AC <-AC op Mem [addr]
o Single address instructions (AC implicit operand)
 Multiple registers: Part of instruction used to choose register operands
Instruction Path
1. Program Counter
o Keeps track of program execution
o Address of next instruction to read from memory
o May have an auto-increment feature or use ALU
2. Instruction Register
o Current instruction
o Includes ALU operation and address of the operand
o Also holds target of jump instruction
o Immediate operands
3. Relationship to Data Path
o PC may be incremented through ALU
o Contents of IR may also be required s input to ALU

Ri

What is micro program counter?

A microprogram counter is used to cycling the sequence of control. Conditionals are the bits used to
determine the flow of microprogram. The next address determines the next microword to be
executed.