11.2.2 Instruction Flow/Pipelining

An “Instruction Cycle” consists of four Q cycles: Q1 through Q4. The instruction fetch and execute are pipelined in such a manner that a fetch takes one instruction cycle, while the decode and execute take another instruction cycle. However, due to the pipelining, each instruction effectively executes in one cycle. If an instruction causes the Program Counter to change (e.g., GOTO), then two cycles are required to complete the instruction as shown in the figure below.

A fetch cycle begins with the Program Counter (PC) incrementing in Q1.

In the execution cycle, the fetched instruction is latched into the Instruction Register (IR) in cycle Q1. This instruction is then decoded and executed during the Q2, Q3 and Q4 cycles. Data memory is read during Q2 (operand read) and written during Q4 (destination write).