Central Processing Unit

The CPU (central processing unit) is the heart of every embedded system and every personal computer. It comprises the ALU (arithmetic logic unit), responsible for the number crunching, and the CU (control unit), responsible for instruction sequencing and branching. Modern microprocessors and microcontrollers provide on a single chip the CPU and a varying degree of additional components, such as counters, timing coprocessors, watchdogs, SRAM (static RAM), and Flash-ROM (electrically erasable ROM).

Hardware can be described on several different levels, from low-level transistor- level to high-level hardware description languages (HDLs). The socalled register-transfer level is somewhat in-between, describing CPU components and their interaction on a relatively high level. We will use this level in this chapter to introduce gradually more complex components, which we will then use to construct a complete CPU. With the simulation system Retro [Chansavat Bräunl 1999], [Bräunl 2000], we will be able to actually program, run, and test our CPUs.