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In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a combinational digital circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] This is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU), which operates on floating point numbers.
Connect register 7 to the B side of the ALU; Set the ALU to perform two's-complement addition; Set the ALU's carry input to zero; Store the result value in register 8; Update the condition codes from the ALU status flags (negative, zero, overflow, and carry) Microjump to a given μPC address for the next microinstruction
A common example is the Data General Nova, which was a 16-bit design that performed 16-bit math as a series of four 4-bit operations. 4-bits was the word size of a widely available single-chip ALU and thus allowed for inexpensive implementation. Using the definition being applied to the 68000, the Nova would be a 4-bit computer, or 4/16.
The B bus can be enabled by just one register at a time, since the transfer of data from 2 registers at the same time, would make this data inconsistent. In contrast, the C bus can be enabled by more than 1 register at the same time; as a matter of fact, the current value present in the C bus can be written to more than 1 register without problems.
For x86 ALU size of 8 bits, an 8-bit two's complement interpretation, the addition operation 11111111 + 11111111 results in 111111110, Carry_Flag set, Sign_Flag set, and Overflow_Flag clear. If 11111111 represents two's complement signed integer −1 ( ADD al,-1 ), then the interpretation of the result is -2 because Overflow_Flag is clear, and ...
Support for such operations was an upgrade option rather than being a standard feature. Since the VAX's registers were 32 bits wide, a 128-bit operation used four consecutive registers or four longwords in memory. The ICL 2900 Series provided a 128-bit accumulator, and its instruction set included 128-bit floating-point and packed decimal ...
So memory cells are not simple store but coupled with an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) setup to perform only one sort of operation with the current value of the cell. Some of the cells are control flow instructions to alter the program execution with jumps, conditional execution , subroutines , if-then-else , for-loop , etc...
The term arithmetic underflow (also floating-point underflow, or just underflow) is a condition in a computer program where the result of a calculation is a number of more precise absolute value than the computer can actually represent in memory on its central processing unit (CPU).