Basic Architecture

Computer Organization & Embedded System — Hardware–Software Design Issues on Embedded System, NEC licence examination syllabus (Nepal Engineering Council).

Basic Architecture of a General-Purpose Processor (GPP)

Same building blocks as before, now viewed from the embedded-systems angle.

A GPP's datapath (ALU + general registers) plus control unit plus memory form the same structure covered in Chapter 4.1 — the difference here is that in embedded systems, this GPP is being chosen as an alternative to a custom single-purpose processor, trading some efficiency for huge flexibility (any program can run on it, not just one fixed algorithm).

💡 Be ready to compare: single-purpose processor vs GPP vs ASIP on flexibility, performance, power, and NRE cost — a 4-way comparison table is a common long-answer format (see the ASIP topic below for the full table).

Syllabus points

Datapath + control unit + memory
ALU, registers, PC, IR, internal buses

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