Skip to content

Instruction Cycle

The Instruction Cycle (or Fetch-Decode-Execute Cycle) is the sequence of operations the CPU performs to carry out actions based on input.

Steps

  1. Fetch the next instruction to be executed from the Program Counter and store in the Instruction Register. Finally, increment the Program Counter.
  2. Decode the instruction
  3. Execute the instruction, using the appropriate unit of the CPU.

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.