Hardwareregister
A hardware register is a small, dedicated storage element integrated into a digital circuit, most commonly inside a processor or peripheral device. Registers hold data, addresses, or control information for short periods as instructions are executed or data is transferred. They are typically built from flip-flops or latches and are accessed via the processor’s internal data path and control logic.
Registers vary in width, commonly 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits. Types include general-purpose registers, which hold
Operation is usually synchronous with a clock. On a clock edge and under an enable signal, a
In microarchitectures, registers often form pipelines with dedicated registers for different stages (fetch, decode, execute). In
Compared with main memory, registers are small, fast, and volatile storage intended for short-term use rather