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Computing (FOLDOC) dictionary (also found in English - Vietnamese, English - English (Wordnet), )
register
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1. One of a small number of high-speed memory locations in a
computer's CPU. Registers differ from ordinary
random access memory in several respects:
There are only a small number of registers (the "register
set"), typically 32 in a modern processor though some,
e.g. SPARC, have as many as 144. A register may be directly
addressed with a few bits. In contrast, there are usually
millions of words of main memory (RAM), requiring at least
twenty bits to specify a memory location. Main memory
locations are often specified indirectly, using an indirectaddressing mode where the actual memory address is held in a
register.
Registers are fast; typically, two registers can be read and a
third written -- all in a single cycle. Memory is slower; a
single access can require several cycles.