RISC

Keywords: RISC, X86

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Reduced (or regular) instruction set computer (or Computing) (RISC), is a computer CPU design philosophy that favors a smaller and simpler set of instructions that all take about the same amount of time to execute. Most types of modern microprocessors are RISCs, for instance DEC Alpha, SPARC, MIPS, and PowerPC. The most widely-used type of microprocessor in desktop systems, the x86, is CISC rather than RISC, although newer chips translate CISC-based x86 instructions into a simpler RISC-based form for internal use prior to execution.

The idea was inspired by the discovery that many of the features that were included in traditional CPU designs for speed were being ignored by the programs that were running on them. In addition, the speed of the CPU in relation to the memory it accessed was increasing. This led to a number of techniques to streamline processing within the CPU, while at the same time attempting to reduce the total number of memory accesses.

More modern terminology refers to these designs as load-store architectures. Some more practical-minded engineers now refer to RISC as "Relegate Important Stuff to the Compiler"