Microprocessor & Microcontoller short questions with answers - Short Notes

1. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
1. What is Microprocessor?
It is a program controlled semiconductor device (IC), which fetches, decodes and
executes instructions. A microprocessor is a multipurpose, programmable logic
device that reads binary instructions from a storage device called memory
accepts binary data as input and processes data according to those instructions
and provides result as output.
2. What are the basic units of a microprocessor?
The basic units or blocks of a microprocessor are ALU, an array of registers and
control unit.
3. Define bit, byte and word.
A digit of the binary number or code is called bit. Also, the bit is the fundamental
storage unit of computer memory. The 8-bit (8-digit) binary number or code is
called byte and 16-bit binary number or code is called word. (Some
microprocessor manufactures refer the basic data size operated by the processor
as word).
4. What is a bus?
Bus is a group of conducting lines that carries data, address and control signals.
5. Define opcode and operand.
 Opcode (Operation code) is the part of an instruction / directive that
identifies a specific operation.
 Operand is a part of an instruction / directive that represents a value on
which the instruction acts.
6. What is an instruction?
An instruction is a binary pattern entered through an input device to command
the microprocessor to perform that specific function.
7. List out the limitations of 8 bit microprocessor.
 Lower Execution Speed
 It can address less memory size
 Few instructions are available
8. What is a port?
The port is a buffered I/O, which is used to hold the data transmitted from the
microprocessor to I/O device or vice-versa.

2. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
9. What is the use of addressing modes, mention the different types?
The various formats of specifying the operands are called addressing modes, it is
used to access the operands or data. The different types are as follows
 Immediate addressing
 Register addressing
 Direct addressing
 Indirect addressing
 Implicit addressing
10. List few applications of microprocessor-based system.
It is used:
 For measurements, display and control of current, voltage, temperature,
pressure, etc.
 For traffic control and industrial tool control.
 For speed control of machines.
11. What are the functions of an accumulator?
The accumulator is the register associated with the ALU operations and
sometimes I/O operations. It is an integral part of ALU. It holds one of data to be
processed by ALU. It also temporarily stores the result of the operation
performed by the ALU.
12. List the allowed register pairs of 8085.
 B-C register pair
 D-E register pair
 H-L register pair
13. What is Stack Pointer?
Stack pointer is a special purpose 16-bit register in the Microprocessor, which
holds the address of the top of the stack.
14. What is Program counter?
Program counter holds the address of either the first byte of the next instruction
to be fetched for execution or the address of the next byte of a multi byte
instruction, which has not been completely fetched. In both the cases it gets
incremented automatically one by one as the instruction bytes get fetched. Also
Program register keeps the address of
the next instruction.

3. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
15. How many operations are there in the instruction set of 8085 microprocessor?
There are 74 operations in the 8085 microprocessor.
16. What is meant by a bus?
A bus is a group of conducting lines that carriers data, address, & control signals.
17. What operation can be performed by using the instruction ADD A?
The instruction ADD a will add the content of the accumulator to itself; this is
equivalent to multiplying by 2.
18. List out the five categories of the 8085 instructions. Give examples of the
instructions for each group.
 Data transfer group – MOV, MVI, LXI.
 Arithmetic group – ADD, SUB, INR.
 Logical group –ANA, XRA, CMP.
 Branch group – JMP, JNZ, CALL.
 Stack I/O and Machine control group – PUSH, POP, IN, HLT.
19. What is the difference between the shift and rotate instructions?
A rotate instruction is a closed loop instruction. That is, the data moved out at
one end is put back in at the other end. The shift instruction loses the data that is
moved out of the last bit locations.
20. What is meant by interrupt?
Interrupt is an external signal that causes a microprocessor to jump to a specific
subroutine.
21. What are level-triggering interrupt?
RST 6.5 & RST 5.5 are level-triggering interrupts.
22. What are operations performed on data in 8085?
The various operations performed are
 Store 8-bit data
 Perform arithmetic and logical operations
 Test for conditions
 Sequence the execution of instructions
 Store data temporarily during execution in the defined R/W memory
locations called the stack

4. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
23. Give the instructions that perform the logical operations.
 AND, OR, Exclusive-OR
 Rotate
 Compare
 Complement
24. What is data transfer instructions?
The data transfer instructions copy data from one source in to a destination
without modifying the content of the source.
25. What is the need for timing diagram?
The timing diagram provides information regarding the status of various signals,
when a machine cycle is executed. The knowledge of timing diagram is essential
for system designer to select matched peripheral devices like memories, latches,
ports etc from a microprocessor system.
26. What are the different functional units in 8086?
Bus Interface Unit and Execution unit, are the two different functional units in
8086.
27. What is the difference between 8086 and 8088?
The BIU in 8088 is 8-bit data bus & 16- bit in 8086.Instruction queue is 4 byte
long in 8088 and 6 byte in 8086.
28. What is an instruction?
An instruction is a binary pattern entered through an input device to command
the microprocessor to perform that specific function
29. List the LDA, STA and DAA instructions
 LDA copies the data byte into accumulator from the memory location
specified by the 16-bit address.
 STA copies the data byte from the accumulator in the memory location
specified by 16-bit address.
 DAA changes the contents of the accumulator from binary to 4-bit BCD
digits.
30. Define ASCII code?
ASCII code is a 7-bit code that represents both decimal numbers, alphabets.
Extended ASCII is an 8-bit code.

5. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
31. What is STA in data transfer instruction?
Copy the data from the accumulator in the memory location specified by the 16-
bit address
32. Why do we use XRA A instruction?
The XRA A instruction is used to clear the contents of the Accumulator and store
the value 00H.
33. Give the difference between JZ and JNZ.
 JZ change the program sequence to the location specified by the 16-bit
address if the zero flag is set.
 JNZ change the program sequence to the location specified by the 16-bit
address if the zero flag is reset.
34. What is CMA?
Complements the data in the accumulator.
35. What is Microcontroller and Microcomputer?
 Microcontroller is a device that includes microprocessor; memory and I/O signal
lines on a single chip, fabricated using VLSI technology.
 Microcomputer is a computer that is designed using microprocessor as its CPU.
It includes microprocessor, memory and I/O.
36. Define Flags
The flags are used to reflect the data conditions in the accumulator. The 8085
flags are S-Sign flag, Z-Zero flag, AC-Auxiliary carry flag, P-Parity flag, CY-
Carry flag.
37. What is assembler?
The assembler translates the assembly language program text which is given as
input to the assembler to their binary equivalents known as object code. The time
required to translate the assembly code to object code is called access time. The
assembler checks for syntax errors & displays them before giving the object code.
38. What is loader?
The loader copies the program into the computer’s main memory at load time
and begins the program execution at execution time.
39. What is linker?
A linker is a program used to join together several object files into one large object file.
For large programs it is more efficient to divide the large program modules into smaller
modules. Each module is individually written, tested & debugged. When all the
modules work they are linked together to form a large functioning program.

6. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
40. Define variable
A variable is an identifier that is associated with the first byte of data item. In assembly
language statement: COUNT DB 20H, COUNT is the variable.
41. What are the modes in which 8086 can operate?
The 8086 can operate in two modes and they are minimum (or uniprocessor)
mode and maximum (or multiprocessor) mode.
42. What is the data and address size in 8086?
The 8086 can operate on either 8-bit or 16-bit data. The 8086 uses 20 bit address to
access memory and 16-bit address to access 1/0 devices.
43. What is the difference between CPU bus and system bus?
The CPU bus has multiplexed lines but the system bus has separate lines for each
signal. (The multiplexed CPU lines are demultiplexed by the CPU interface
circuit to form system bus).
44. How do 8086 interrupts occur?
An 8086 interrupt can come from any of the following three sources
 External signals
 Special instructions in the program
 Condition produced by instruction
45. What are the 8086 interrupt types?
Dedicated interrupts
 Type 0: Divide by zero interrupt
 Type 1: Single step interrupt
 Type 2:Non maskable interrupt
 Type 3: Breakpoint
 Type 4: Overflow interrupt
Software interrupts
 Type 0-255
46. Define pipelining.
In 8086, to speedup the execution of program, the instructions fetching and
execution of instructions are overlapped each other. This technique is known as
pipelining.
In pipelining, when the n th instruction is executed, the n+1 th instruction is
fetched and thus the processing speed is increased.
47. What are the different flag available in status register of 8086?
There are 6 one bit flags are present. They are,
AF - Auxiliary Carry Flag CF - Carry Flag
OF - Overflow Flag SF - Sign Flag
PF - Parity Flag ZF - Zero Flag

7. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
48. What are the modes of operations present in 8086?
i. Minimum mode (or) Uniprocessor system
ii. Maximum mode (or) Multiprocessor system
49. What are the three classifications of 8086 interrupts?
(1) Predefined interrupts
(2) User defined Hardware interrupts
(3) User defined software interrupts.
50. What are the various programmed data transfer methods?
 Synchronous data transfer
 Asynchronous data transfer
 Interrupt driven data transfer
51. What are the modes used in display modes?
1. Left Entry mode : In the left entry mode, the data is entered from the left side of
the display unit.
2. Right Entry Mode: In the right entry mode, the first entry to be displayed is
entered on the rightmost display.
52. What is a control word?
It is a word stored in a register (control register) used to control the operation of
a program digital device.
53. What is interfacing?
An interface is a shared boundary between the devices which involves sharing
information. Interfacing is the process of making two different systems
communicate with each other.
54. What is the use of stepper motor?
A stepper motor is a device used to obtain an accurate position control of
rotating shafts. A stepper motor employs rotation of its shaft in terms of steps,
rather than continuous rotation as in case of AC or DC motor.
55. Name the special functions registers available in 8051.
 Accumulator
 B Register
 Program Status Word
 Stack Pointer.
 Data Pointer.
 Port 0 , Port 1 , Port 2 & Port 3
 Interrupt priority control register.
 Interrupt enable control register.

8. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
56. Compare Microprocessor and Microcontroller.
Microprocessor Microcontroller
Microprocessor contains ALU, general
purpose registers, stack pointer, program
counter, clock timing circuit and interrupt
circuit.
Microcontroller obtains the circuitry of
microprocessor and in addition it has
built- in ROM, RAM, I/O devices, timers
and counters.
It has many instructions to
move data between memory
and CPU.
It has one or two instructions to move
data between memory and CPU.
It has one or two bit handling
instructions.
It has many bit handling instructions.
Access times for memory and I/O
devices are more.
Less access times for built-in memory and
I/O devices.
Microprocessor based system
requires more hardware.
Microcontroller based system requires less
hardware reducing PCB size and
increasing the reliability.
57. Name the five interrupt sources of 8051?
The interrupts are:
Vector address
 External interrupt 0 : IE0 : 0003H
 Timer interrupt 0 : TF0 : 000BH
 External interrupt 1 : IE1 : 0013H
 Timer Interrupt 1 : TF1 : 001BH
Serial Interrupt
 Receive interrupt : RI : 0023H
 Transmit interrupt: TI : 0023H
58. What is settling or conversion time in DAC?
The time taken by the DAC to convert a given digital data to corresponding
analog signal is called conversion time.
59. What are the different types of ADC?
The different types of ADC are successive approximation ADC, counter type
ADC flash type ADC, integrator converters and voltage- to-frequency converters.

9. Microprocessor & Microcontroller Short Answer
Mathankumar.S, AP/EEE V.M.K.V.E.C
60. What are input & output devices?
Keyboards, Floppy disk are the examples of input devices. Printer, LED / LCD
display, CRT Monitor are the examples of output devices.
61. Define A/D and D/A converters?
D/A converters transform a digital signal to an equivalent analog signal, and
A/D converters transform an analog signal o an equivalent digital signal.