Processing and storage

The processor stores the data in the main memory and in the registers.

The characteristics of machine architecture and the implementation of processing and storage influence the processor's assembler language. The assembler supports the various processors that implement the POWER® family and PowerPC® architectures. The assembler can support both the POWER® family and PowerPC® architectures because the two architectures share a large number of instructions.

This topic provides an overview and comparison of the POWER® family and PowerPC® architectures and tells how data is stored in main memory and in registers. It also discusses the basic functions for both the POWER® family and PowerPC® instruction sets.

All the instructions discussed in this topic are nonprivileged. Therefore, all the registers discussed in this topic are related to nonprivileged instructions. Privileged instructions and their related registers are defined in the PowerPC® architecture.

The following processing and storage articles provide an overview of the system microprocessor and tells how data is stored both in main memory and in registers. This information provides some of the conceptual background necessary to understand the function of the system microprocessor's instruction set and pseudo-ops.