Chapter 3 Digital Logic and Binary Numbers

These are lecture notes to accompany the book SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C, by Richard P. Paul, 2nd edition, 2000.
By Michael Weeks
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Binary
A computer is a bistable device A bistable device:
Easy to design and build Has 2 states: 0 and 1

One Binary digit (bit) represents 2 possible states (0, 1)

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

 With 2 bits, 4 states are possible (22 = 4)

Bit1 Bit0 State 0 0 1
Bit2 Bit1 Bit0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 State 1 2 3 4 5

0
1 1

1
0 1

2
3 4

0 0 1

1
1 1

0
1 1

1
0 1

6
7 8

With 3 bits, 8 states are possible (23 = 8) With n bits, 2n states are possible
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Binary Coded Decimal (BCD)

Why not use 4 bits to represent decimal?
Let 0000 represent 0 Let 0001 represent 1 Let 0010 represent 2 Let 0011 represent 3, etc.

This is called BCD Only uses 10 of the 16 possibilities

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Binary Number System

From left to right, the position of the digit indicates its magnitude (in decreasing order)
E.g. in decimal, 123 is less than 321 In binary, 011 is less than 100

A subscript indicates the numbers base

E.g. is 100 decimal or binary? We dont know! But 1410 = 11102 is clear
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Bytes
A group of 8 bits is a byte A byte can represent 28 = 256 possible states Registers are usually a multiple of bytes SPARC registers have 32 bits (4 bytes) 232 = 4,294,967,296

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Memory Addresses
Memory addresses are in binary
often 32 bits, these days if each memory address maps to 1 byte:
232 bytes = 4 GB

K = kilo = thousand, but 1KB actually means 1024 bytes 1MB = 1024 x 1024 bytes 1GB = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Octal and Hexadecimal

It is difficult for a human to work with long strings of 0s and 1s Octal and Hexadecimal are ways to group bits together Octal: base 8 Hexadecimal: base 16

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Hexadecimal
With 4 bits, there are 16 possibilities Use 0, 1, 2, 3, 9 for the first 10 symbols Use a, b, c, d, e, and f for the last 6
Bit3 Bit2 Bit1 Bit0 Symbol 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1 1 3 0 1 0 0 4 0 1 0 1 5 0 1 1 0 6 0 1 1 1 7 1 0 0 0 8 1 0 0 1 9 1 0 1 0 a 1 0 1 1 b 1 1 0 0 c 1 1 0 1 d 1 1 1 0 e 1 1 1 1 f

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Binary to Hexadecimal
01010110101100112 = ? in hex Group into 4 bits, from the right: 0101, 0110, 1011, 00112 Now translate each (see previous table):

01012 => 5, 01102 => 6, 10112 => b, 00112 => 3 So this is 56b316 What if there are not enough bits?
Pad with 0s on the left
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Hexadecimal to Binary
f0e516 = ? in binary Translate each into a group of 4 bits:
f16 => 11112, 016 => 00002, e16 => 11102, 516 => 01012

So this is 11110000111001012

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Decimal to Any Number Base

Take the decimal number, and divide by the new number base Keep track of the quotient and remainder Repeat until quotient = 0 Read number from the bottom to the top

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Decimal to Binary
Binary is base 2 Example: convert 35 (decimal) to binary
Quotient Remainder

35 / 2 = 17 17 / 2 = 8 8/2=4 4/2=2 2/2=1 1/2=0

1 1 0 0 0 1

So 3510 = 1000112
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Any Number Base to Decimal

From right to left, multiply the digit of the number-to-convert by its baseposition Sum all results

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Binary to Decimal
Binary is base 2 Example: convert 10110 (binary) to decimal
101102 = 1x24 + 0x23 + 1x22 + 1x21 + 0x20 = 1x16 + 0x8 + 1x4 + 1x2 + 0x1 = 16 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 0 = 22

So 101102 = 2210
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Hexadecimal to Decimal
Hexadecimal is base 16 Example: convert 16 (hex) to decimal
1616 = 1x161 + 6x160 = 1x16 + 6x1 = 16 + 6 = 22 So 1616 = 2210

Not surprising, since 1616 = 0001, 01102

If one of the hex digits had been > 9, say c, then we would have used 12 in its place.
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange Use byte values to represent characters The assembler allows double-quotes
mov mov 0x4d, %r3 M, %r3 ! Moves capital M to register 3 ! This command does the same

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

ASCII chart

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Bitwise Logical Operations

There are several binary operations:
NOT AND OR XOR NAND NOR

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

NOT
The NOT operation simply complements a binary value
not (a) a
a not(a)

0
1

1
0

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

AND
The AND operation uses 2 binary values
a and b
a
0 0

b a and b
0 1 0 0

1 0 0
1 1 1

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

OR
The OR operation uses 2 binary values
a or b
a
0 0

b a or b
0 1 0 1

1 0 1
1 1 1

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

XOR
The XOR (exclusive-or) operation uses 2 binary values True when only one input is true.
a xor b
a
0 0

b a xor b
0 1 0 1

1 0 1
1 1 0

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

NAND
The NAND (Not-AND) operation uses 2 binary values Take the AND function, and complement it.
a nand b
a
0 0

b a nand b
0 1 1 1

1 0 1
1 1 0

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

NOR
The NOR (Not-OR) operation uses 2 binary values Take the OR function, and complement it. NAND and NOR are easy to make on a chip. Why? Take CSc 4250 and find out!

a
0 0

b a nor b
0 1 1 0

1 0 0
1 1 0

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Possible Logic Functions

Suppose you have 2 binary digits: a, b Imagine that some function operates on them to create c. What could this function be?
There are only 16 possibilities And some of these are not useful!
a b
some function

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Logic Operations
A B 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 0011 Logical 0101 0000 false 0001 a and b 0010 a and (not b) 0011 a 0100 b and (not a) 0101 b 0110 a xor b 0111 a or b 1000 a nor b 1001 a xor (not b) 1010 not b 1011 a or (not b) 1100 not a 1101 b or (not a) 1110 a nand b 1111 true Sparc and andn

xor or
xnor orn

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Bitwise
Each of these logic functions is a bitwise operation, meaning that the result is independent of the bits to the left or right
e.g. 101 or 0 1 1 111

compare this with addition

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Logic Instruction Examples

mov 0x21, %l0 and %l0, 0x3c, %l1

20 3d

mov 0x47, %l0 and %l0, 0xca, %l1

42
5 cf ffffff77 ffffffaa

mov 0x21, %l0 or %l0, 0x3c, %l1

mov 0x47, %l0 andn %l0, 0xca, %l1

mov 0x55, %l0 xnor %l0, 0x3c, %l1

mov 0x47, %l0 or %l0, 0xca, %l1

ffffff96
mov 0x47, %l0 orn %l0, 0xca, %l1

mov 0x55, %l0 xor %l0, 0x3c, %l1

69
mov not 0x55, %l0 %l0

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

A Few More Logic Examples

In all the examples below, these registers have the following initial values: %l0 = 0x12345678 %l1 = 0x9abcdef0 What are the values for %l1 after the instruction? and %l0, %l1, %l1

xor

%l0, %l1, %l1

123456780
or %l0, %l1, %l1 not

88888888
%l0, %l1

9abcdef8

edcba987

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

SPARC Instruction Format

These commands are in the form:
command source register 1, source register 2, destination register command source register 1, immediate value, destination register command can be any of the following: and, andn, xor, or, xnor, orn the cc means set condition codes
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

andn means a and (not b) orn means a or (not b)

andcc, andncc, xorcc, orcc, xnorcc, orncc

SPARC Logical Instruction Example

cmp %a_r, 0 ble next nop add %b_r, 1, %b_r next:
This is equivalent to: if (a > 0) b++;

%a_r and %b_r will be replaced by the actual registers, such as %r2 and %r3
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Synthetic Instructions
The cmp command is a synthetic one. It is a macro that uses %g0. The above cmp command will be expanded to:
subcc tst %a_r, %g0, %g0 %a_r

Also, the tst command compares a register to 0:

which the assembler turns into:
orcc %a_r, %g0, %g0

Since %g0 ignores any updates, only the condition codes are affected.
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Flags
Since individual bits are used to represent boolean flags, a word may contain 32 flags. Common flag operations and mnemonics
set: bset clear: bclr toggle: btog ( done with or ) ( done with andn ) ( done with xor )

Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C

Testing Flags
This command will see if one or more flags is set btst reg_or_imm, regrs1 it expands to: andcc regrs1, reg_or_imm, %g0 (notice how the operands are switched) example: test if flag 0x02 is set btst 0x02, %a_r be clear nop set: clear:
Richard P. Paul, SPARC Architecture, Assembly Language Programming, and C