In the early days of the computer industry, high level programming languages were not available and most

of the work was done in assembly language. Therefore CPU designers tried to make instructions that would do as much work as possible. The general thinking at that time was that hardware design was easier than compiler design, so large parts of the complexity of the software went into the hardware (and/or microcode). This design philosophy was named Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC). With the advent of higher level languages, a new design strategy started to gain more and more popularity: instructions which "do less" may still provide high performances if this simplicity can be utilized to make instructions execute very quickly. The focus on "reduced instructions" led to the resulting machine being called a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC).

A complex instruction set computer (CISC), is a computer where single instructions can execute several low-level operations (such as a load from memory, an arithmetic operation, and a memory store) and/or are capable of multi-step operations or addressing modes within single instructions. Examples of CISC instruction set architectures are System/360 through z/Architecture, PDP11, VAX, Motorola 68k, and x86.

Large number of instruction (100-250) Some of the instructions perform specialized task and some are not used frequently. Large variety of addressing modes (5-20) Variable length instruction format Instructions that manipulate operands in the memory Large number of data types Most common microprocessor designs such as the Intel 80x86 and Motorola 68K series followed the CISC philosophy

Relatively few instructions Few addressing modes Memory access limited to load and store the instructions All operations are done within the registers of the CPU. Fixed length and easily decoded instruction format Single cycle instruction execution Hardwired rather than micro programmed control

Relatively large numbers of registers. Efficient instruction pipeline Compiler support for translation of high level language to machine level language Few data types in hardware.

RISC designs have led to a number of successful platforms and architectures, some of the larger ones being: ARM The ARM architecture dominates the market for low power and low cost embedded systems (typically 100500 MHz in 2008). ARM Ltd., which licenses intellectual property rather than manufacturing chips, reported that 10 billion licensed chips had been shipped as of early 2008. The various generations, variants and implementations of the ARM core are deployed in over 90% of mobile electronics devices, including almost all modern mobile phones, mp3 players and portable video players. Some high profile examples are Apple iPods (custom ARM7TDMI SoC) Apple iPhone and iPod Touch (Samsung ARM1176JZF, ARM Cortex-A8, Apple A4) Apple iPad (Apple A4 ARM-based SoC) Palm and PocketPC PDAs and smartphones (Marvell XScale family, Samsung SC32442 - ARM9) RIM BlackBerry smartphone/email devices. Microsoft Windows Mobile Nintendo Game Boy Advance (ARM7TDMI) Nintendo DS (ARM7TDMI, ARM946E-S) Sony Network Walkman (Sony in-house ARM based chip) T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream Android, Qualcomm MSM7201A ARM11 @ 528 MHz)

PowerPC Architecture - The PowerPC architecture is a popular RISC based architecture that dominates the performance and power constraint embedded device markets such as communication equipments (Routers, Switches), storage equipments etc. MIPS's MIPS line, found in most SGI computers and the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo 64 (discontinued), PlayStation Portable game consoles, and residential gateways like Linksys WRT54G series. IBM's and Freescale's (formerly Motorola SPS) Power Architecture, used in all of IBM's supercomputers, midrange servers and workstations, in Apple's PowerPCbased Macintosh computers (discontinued), in Nintendo's Gamecube and Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles, EMC's DMX range of the Symmetrix SAN, and in many embedded applications like printers and cars. SPARC, by Oracle (previously Sun Microsystems), and Fujitsu Hewlett-Packard's PA-RISC, also known as HP-PA, discontinued December 31, 2008. Alpha, used in single-board computers, workstations, servers and supercomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq and HP, discontinued as of 2007. XAP processor used in many low-power wireless (Bluetooth, wifi) chips from CSR. Hitachi's SuperH, originally in wide use in the Sega Super 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast, now at the heart of many consumer electronics devices. The SuperH is the base platform for the Mitsubishi - Hitachi joint semiconductor group. The two groups merged in 2002, dropping Mitsubishi's own RISC architecture, the M32R. Atmel AVR used in a variety of products including ranging from Xbox handheld controllers to BMW cars.