Load–store architecture

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In computer engineering, a load–store architecture (or a register–register architecture) is an instruction set architecture that divides instructions into two categories: memory access (load and store between memory and registers) and ALU operations (which only occur between registers).[1]: 9–12 

Some RISC architectures such as PowerPC, SPARC, RISC-V, ARM, and MIPS are load–store architectures.[1]: 9–12 

For instance, in a load–store approach both operands and destination for an ADD operation must be in registers. This differs from a register–memory architecture (for example, a CISC instruction set architecture such as x86) in which one of the operands for the ADD operation may be in memory, while the other is in a register.[1]: 9–12 

The earliest example of a load–store architecture was the CDC 6600.[1]: 54–56  Almost all vector processors (including many GPUs[2][better source needed]) use the load–store approach.[3]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Michael J. Flynn (1995). Computer architecture: pipelined and parallel processor design. ISBN 0867202041.
  2. ^ "AMD GCN reference" (PDF).
  3. ^ Harvey G. Cragon (1996). Memory systems and pipelined processors. pp. 512–513. ISBN 0867204745.