CISC vs RISC: Complex vs Reduced Instruction Set Computer

Modern CPU architectures are categorized into 2 broad categories, CISC or Complex Instruction Set Computer and RISC or Reduced Instruction Set Computer. The categories have become increasingly blurred over the years as many of the features from each side have been implemented by the other. CISC architectures are focused on hardware, they use complex instructions, often one instruction can take multiple cycles to execute. CISC instruction are more sophisticated to decode and increase the complexity and power consumption of the hardware. The advantage of CISC is that programs can be much smaller. RISC architectures are focused on software. Instruction are much simpler, almost always 1 instruction per cycle. This mean that program require more instructions to complete the same task, and require more memory to store the instructions. The hardware however is less complex and consumes less power. We also discuss Microcode a technique that imposes an interpreter between the hardware and the architectural level of a computer. This helps CISC systems offset some of the efficiency differences by managing some of the translation from “higher level” to “lower level” machine code. Please like this video and subscribe and would like to see more like it!    / @codingcoach   It is part of my Computer Organization and Architecture course which you can find here:    • Computer Organization and Architecture   If you have not seen the Little Man Computer (LMC) series of videos, they are highly recommended before this one you can find them here: A recommended introduction to Little Man computer video here:    • Little Man Computer Explained: Introductio...   A "Hello LMC" video where we do a smaller program and talk more in-depth about the instruction cycle and basic instructions:    • Little Man Computer (LMC) Explained: Hello...   And an intermediate step where we introduce branching and explore recreating conditional statements with LMC:    • Little Man Computer (LMC) Explained: Branc...   Finally we explore iteration, labels and advanced LMC:    • Little Man Computer (LMC): Assembler with ...   Here are presentation slides that can be used as a supplement to follow along and as a future reference for this content: https://drive.google.com/file/d/150yd...