What is the Difference Between Stack Pointer and Program Counter

Stack is a buffer which is used to store data from top to down in memory. Stack pointer is a small register that is used to store the adress of last program accessed by stack. ... It is used to point to data. Program counter is used to store the address of current program that is goint to execute.

1. What is the function of program counter and stack pointer?
2. What is the difference between stack and stack pointer?
3. What is the program counter used for?
4. What is stack pointer used for?
5. Why stack pointer is 16 bit?
6. How do you calculate program counters?
7. How do you initialize a stack pointer?
8. What is stack pointer in C?
9. Where is stack pointer?
10. What is the purpose of IP register?
11. Is buffer a register?
12. What is true about program counter?

What is the function of program counter and stack pointer?

The main difference between stack pointer and program counter is that the stack pointer is a register that stores the address of the last program request in a stack while the program counter is a register that stores the address of the next instruction to be executed from the memory.

What is the difference between stack and stack pointer?

The stack is a LIFO (last in, first out) data structure implemented in the RAM area and is used to store addresses and data when the microprocessor branches to a subroutine. ... They are the stack pointer, SP, and the program counter, PC. The Stack Pointer register will hold the address of the top location of the stack.

What is the program counter used for?

The program counter, PC, is a special-purpose register that is used by the processor to hold the address of the next instruction to be executed. The PLA automatically updates the PC to point to the next instruction during the op-code decode cycle.

What is stack pointer used for?

The Stack Pointer (SP) register is used to indicate the location of the last item put onto the stack. When you PUT something ONTO the stack (PUSH onto the stack), the SP is decremented before the item is placed on the stack.

Why stack pointer is 16 bit?

Thus these registers are used to store the memory locations where the Program Counter and Stack pointers point to and as we discussed earlier address of a memory location is of 16 bit, so therefore these registers are of 16 bit so that they can store the 16 bit address as data in these registers.

How do you calculate program counters?

A program counter is one of the register used in computer architecture and os. It holds the address of next instruction to be executed. After instruction is executed, it will incremented by one,(PC =PC +1) moreover program counter will be point to the next instruction.

How do you initialize a stack pointer?

Example stack pointer initialization

To set up the stack pointers, enter each mode with interrupts disabled, and assign the appropriate value to the stack pointer. The stack pointer value set up in the reset handler is automatically passed as a parameter to __user_initial_stackheap() by C library initialization code.

What is stack pointer in C?

A stack pointer is a small register that stores the address of the last program request in a stack. A stack is a specialized buffer which stores data from the top down. As new requests come in, they "push down" the older ones.

Where is stack pointer?

The stack pointer always points to the item that is currently at the top of the stack. A push operation pre-decrements the stack pointer before storing an item on the stack.

What is the purpose of IP register?

A special-purpose register, usually called the instruction pointer (IP) or program counter (PC), keeps track of what instruction is being executed.

Is buffer a register?

The main difference between register and buffer is that a register is a temporary storage area in the processor that allows transferring data faster while buffer is a temporary storage area in main memory that holds data before using them.

What is true about program counter?

A program counter is a register in a computer processor that contains the address (location) of the instruction being executed at the current time. As each instruction gets fetched, the program counter increases its stored value by 1. ... When the computer restarts or is reset, the program counter normally reverts to 0.