RISC versus CISC

In this computer science video tutorial you will learn about some of the differences between RISC and CISC.  RISC stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computer, and CISC stands for Complex Instruction Set Computer.  You will learn that RISC and CISC are two fundamentally different approaches to processor design.  The RISC approach is at the heart of the ARM architecture (Advanced RISC machine) which can be found in Apple devices for example, whereas the CISC approach is at the heart of Intel’s x86 architecture, found in many early PCs for example.  You will learn that the fundamental difference between RISC and CISC stems from the number of bits allocated to the operation code versus the operand of a binary machine code instruction inside the current instruction register of a CPU.  You will see how this impacts on the size of a processor’s instruction set and the number of memory locations that can be addressed directly by the processor.  You will therefore learn why CISC chips are typically more expensive to design and produce than RISC chips and why CISC processors have more addressing modes.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:55 Assembly code instructions
04:12 Anatomy of a machine code instruction
04:47 The operation code and the operand
07:46 Summary of the differences between RISC and CISC

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