reduced instruction set computer

Thesaurus

Noun

reduced instruction set computer - (computer science) a kind of computer architecture that has a relatively small set of computer instructions that it can performreduced instruction set computing, RISCcomputer architecture, architecture - (computer science) the structure and organization of a computer's hardware or system software; "the architecture of a computer's system software"computer science, computing - the branch of engineering science that studies (with the aid of computers) computable processes and structurescomplex instruction set computer, complex instruction set computing, CISC - (computer science) a kind of computer architecture that has a large number of instructions hard coded into the CPU chip

Reduced Instruction Set Computer

reduced instruction set computer

[ri¦düst in′strək·shən ‚set kəm′pyüd·ər] (computer science) A computer in which the compiler and hardware are interlocked, and the compiler takes over some of the hardware functions of conventional computers and translates high-level-language programs directly into low-level machine code. Abbreviated RISC.

Reduced Instruction Set Computer

(processor)(RISC) A processor whose design is based on therapid execution of a sequence of simple instructions ratherthan on the provision of a large variety of complexinstructions (as in a Complex Instruction Set Computer).

Features which are generally found in RISC designs are uniforminstruction encoding (e.g. the op-code is always in the samebit positions in each instruction which is always one wordlong), which allows faster decoding; a homogenous register set, allowing any register to be used in any context andsimplifying compiler design; and simple addressing modeswith more complex modes replaced by sequences of simplearithmetic instructions.

Examples of (more or less) RISC processors are the Berkeley RISC, HP-PA, Clipper, i960, AMD 29000, MIPS R2000and DEC Alpha. IBM's first RISC computer was the RT/PC(IBM 801), they now produce the RISC-based RISC System/6000 and SP/2 lines.

Despite Apple Computer's bogus claims for theirPowerPC-based Macintoshes, the first RISC processor usedin a personal computer was the Advanced RISC Machine (ARM)used in the Acorn Archimedes.

reduced instruction set computer

Related to reduced instruction set computer: complex instruction set computer

noun

Synonyms for reduced instruction set computer

noun (computer science) a kind of computer architecture that has a relatively small set of computer instructions that it can perform

Synonyms

reduced instruction set computing
RISC

Related Words

computer architecture
architecture
computer science
computing

Antonyms

complex instruction set computer
complex instruction set computing
CISC