Introduction to ISA

This lecture introduces the concept of Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) by exploring the components inside a processor, such as functional units, registers, and control logic. It covers typical details in an ISA, classifications like CISC and RISC, and different architectures like Harvard and Unified. The lecture also delves into specific ISAs like MIPS and Nios II, explaining their characteristics and applications. It discusses the differences between fixed and variable-width instructions, the translation process from high-level languages to binary, and provides examples of assembly language instructions for arithmetic operations, memory access, and program flow changes. The importance of regularity and primitive nature of machine instructions is highlighted, along with the relationship between the instruction cycle and ISA.