instruction set architecture
<architecture> (ISA) The parts of a processor's design that need to be
understood in order to write assembly language, such as the machine language
instructions and registers. Parts of the architecture that are left to the
implementation, such as number of superscalar functional units, cache size and
cycle speed, are not part of the ISA.
The definition of SPARC, for example, carefully distinguishes between an
implementation and a specification.
(1999-01-16)
Nearby terms:
instruction prefetch « instruction scheduling «
instruction set « instruction set architecture
» Instruction Set Processor » instrument » int
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