I came across this multicycle MIPS processor microarchitecture. My query is, is the multiplexer (selected by PCSrc) which selects PC value really needed? What is the harm in only sending the clocked PC value to PC'.
Considering the instruction is either lw, sw, beq or ALU operation, the second cycle would be used to fetch operands from register file. That cycle could be used to flop PC value instead of using first cycle to update PC value. This would save one mux.
Please tell me if my understanding is correct.