There are two big groups of architectures defining assembly languages that we will cover in this section, and they are Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) and Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC).
Assembly languages
CISC versus RISC
Without going into too many details, the main difference between CISC assemblies, such as Intel IA-32 and x64, and RISC assembly languages associated with architectures such as ARM, is the complexity of their instructions.
CISC assembly languages have more complex instructions. They focus on completing tasks using as few lines of assembly instructions as possible. To do that, CISC assembly languages include instructions that can perform multiple operations, such as mul in Intel assembly, which performs data access, multiplication, and data store operations.
In the RISC assembly language, assembly instructions are simple and generally perform only one operation each. This may lead to more lines of code to complete a specific task. However, it may also be more efficient, as this omits the execution of any unnecessary operations.
Types of instructions
In the following sections, we will cover the main structure of each assembly language, the three basic types of assembly instructions, and how they are translated into each of these languages:
- Data manipulation:
- Arithmetic manipulation
- Logic and bit manipulation
- Shifts and rotations
- Data transfers:
- Transfers between memory and registers
- Transfers between registers
- Execution of flow control:
- Jumps or calls
- Branches based on a condition
