Question

What are special purpose registers in computer architecture?

1) Registers used for general purpose computations
2) Registers used for storing temporary data
3) Registers used for specific tasks or functions
4) Registers used for arithmetic operations

Answer 1

Special purpose registers are registers designed for specific functions in computer architecture, like holding addresses for instructions and execution states, not for general computations.

Step-by-step explanation:

Special purpose registers in computer architecture are registers used for specific tasks or functions. These registers are designed to hold temporary data needed by the CPU to execute certain operations. For example, the Program Counter (PC) holds the address of the next instruction to be executed, the Instruction Register (IR) holds the current instruction being executed, and the Stack Pointer (SP) keeps track of the top of the stack in memory.

Special purpose registers are not to be confused with general purpose registers, which can be used for a variety of tasks and are not assigned to any particular function. The design of these registers allows the CPU to handle various low-level tasks efficiently, such as managing instruction sequencing, addressing, and execution state.