MICROPROGRAM CONTROL UNIT HAVIG MULTIWAY BRANCH

A microprogram control unit is provided for processing conditional branch micro-instructions stored in a micro-instruction memory to control the function of an information processing apparatus. The unit includes a microprogram counter coupled to the micro-instruction memory and contains an address for accessing the micro-instruction stored in the memory. A circuit is provided for registering the micro-instruction received from the micro-instruction memory and having an address field coupled to the microprogram counter and a condition field for designating a condition to be judged. A detecting circuit is coupled to the registering circuits to receive the micro-instruction therefrom and for detecting the conditional branch micro-instruction. Further, there is provided a circuit for generating status signals representing respectively a plurality of the status of the information processing apparatus and selectively outputting anyone of the status signals. There is also provided a circuit for judging the coincidence between the status signal selectively outputted from the status signal generating circuit and the condition designated by the content of the condition field of the micro-instruction registered by the registering circuit to output a branch control signal. With this arrangement, the address field of the micro-program counter may be replaced by the content of the address field of the micro-instruction in accordance with the branch control signal.