Registers

Registers are very fast memory locations within the circuitry of the CPU. These very fast on-chip memory locations store binary values using 32 or 64 bits. Information is held there while it is being used.

Here are some of the dedicated registers: Program Counter (PC): Points to the next instruction to be fetched and executed. Stack Point: Points to a stack data structure holding return addresses, procedure or function parameters. Used when a procedure or function is called. Also used when an interrupt is serviced Status Register: Holds condition codes to indicate the outcome of operations. Accumulator: Holds the result of the current set of calculations Current Instruction Register (CIR): Stores the current instruction (namely operator and operand). Memory Address Register (MAR): Holds the address of the memory location currently being accessed by the processor. Memory Buffer Register (MBR): Holds the data item being transferred to or from the memory location currently being accessed by the processor. .