The ARM Architecture

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Agenda

UNIT-1
TOPIC:1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

ARM PROCESSOR FUNDAMENTALS ARM VERSIONS ARM INSTRUCTIONS SET ARM PROGRAMMING MODEL ARM ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

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1. ARM PROCESSOR FUNDAMENTALS:ARM is short for Advanced Risc Machines Ltd. Founded 1990, owned by Acorn & Apple Known before becoming ARM as computer manufacturer Acorn which developed a 32-bit RISC processor for it s own use . The ARM is a 32-bit architecture. When used in relation to the ARM: Byte means 8 bits Half word means 16 bits (two bytes) Word means 32 bits (four bytes) Most ARM s implement two instruction sets 32-bit ARM Instruction Set 16-bit Thumb Instruction Set Jazelle cores can also execute Java byte code

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Why ARM here?

ARM is one of the most licensed and thus widespread processor cores in the world

Used especially in portable devices due to low power consumption and reasonable performance (MIPS / watt)

Several interesting extensions available or in development like Thumb instruction set and Jazelle Java machine

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2. ARM VERSIONS:-

Processor cores: ARM6, ARM7, ARM9, ARM10, ARM11 Extensions: Thumb, El Segundo, Jazelle etc. IP-blocks: UART, GPIO, memory controllers, etc

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ARM architecture

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Processor Modes


The ARM has seven basic operating modes:



User : unprivileged mode under which most tasks run FIQ : entered when a high priority (fast) interrupt is raised IRQ : entered when a low priority (normal) interrupt is raised Supervisor : entered on reset and when a Software Interrupt instruction is executed Abort : used to handle memory access violations Undef : used to handle undefined instructions System : privileged mode using the same registers as user mode

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3.ARM PROGRAMING MODEL (The ARM Register Set)

Current Visible Registers
Abort Undef Mode SVC Mode IRQ Mode FIQ Mode User
r0 r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 r8 r9 r10 r11 r12 r13 (sp) r14 (lr) r15 (pc) cpsr spsr

Banked out Registers

User
r8 r9 r10 r11 r12 r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

FIQ
r8 r9 r10 r11 r12 r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

IRQ

SVC

Undef

Abort

r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

spsr

spsr

spsr

spsr

spsr

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Register Organization Summary

User
r0 r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7 r8 r9 r10 r11 r12 r13 (sp) r14 (lr) r15 (pc) cpsr spsr spsr spsr spsr spsr

FIQ

IRQ

SVC

Undef

Abort

User mode r0-r7, r15, and cpsr

r8 r9 r10 r11 r12 r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

User mode r0-r12, r15, and cpsr

User mode r0-r12, r15, and cpsr

User mode r0-r12, r15, and cpsr

User mode r0-r12, r15, and cpsr

Thumb state Low registers

Thumb state High registers

r13 (sp) r14 (lr) r13 (sp) r14 (lr) r13 (sp) r14 (lr) r13 (sp) r14 (lr)

Note: System mode uses the User mode register set

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The Registers


ARM has 37 registers all of which are 32-bits long.

   

1 dedicated program counter 1 dedicated current program status register 5 dedicated saved program status registers 30 general purpose registers

The current processor mode governs which of several banks is accessible. Each mode can access
   

a particular set of r0-r12 registers a particular r13 (the stack pointer, sp) and r14 (the link register, lr) the program counter, r15 (pc) the current program status register, cpsr

Privileged modes (except System) can also access



a particular spsr (saved program status register)

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Program Status Registers

31 28 27 24 23 16 15 8 7 6 5 4 0

N Z C V Q f


n s

e x

I F T c

mode

Condition code flags

   

Interrupt Disable bits.

 

N = Negative result from ALU Z = Zero result from ALU C = ALU operation Carried out V = ALU operation oVerflowed

I = 1: Disables the IRQ. F = 1: Disables the FIQ.

T Bit
  

Sticky Overflow flag - Q flag

 

Architecture 5TE/J only Indicates if saturation has occurred



Architecture xT only T = 0: Processor in ARM state T = 1: Processor in Thumb state

Mode bits


J bit
 

Specify the processor mode

Architecture 5TEJ only J = 1: Processor in Jazelle state

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Program Counter (r15)



When the processor is executing in ARM state:

  

All instructions are 32 bits wide All instructions must be word aligned Therefore the pc value is stored in bits [31:2] with bits [1:0] undefined (as instruction cannot be halfword or byte aligned).

When the processor is executing in Thumb state:

  

All instructions are 16 bits wide All instructions must be halfword aligned Therefore the pc value is stored in bits [31:1] with bit [0] undefined (as instruction cannot be byte aligned).

When the processor is executing in Jazelle state:

 

All instructions are 8 bits wide Processor performs a word access to read 4 instructions at once

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Development of the ARM Architecture

Halfword and signed halfword / byte support System mode

4
SA-110 SA-1110

1 2 3
Early ARM architectures

Improved ARM/Thumb Interworking CLZ

5TE

Jazelle Java bytecode execution ARM9EJ-S ARM7EJ-S

5TEJ

Saturated maths DSP multiplyaccumulate instructions ARM1020E

ARM926EJ-S ARM1026EJ-S

Thumb instruction set ARM7TDMI ARM720T

SIMD Instructions Multi-processing V6 Memory architecture (VMSA) Unaligned data support

4T
ARM9TDMI ARM940T

XScale ARM9E-S ARM966E-S

ARM1136EJ-S

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Conditional Execution and Flags



ARM instructions can be made to execute conditionally by postfixing them with the appropriate condition code field.


This improves code density and performance by reducing the number of forward branch instructions.
CMP BEQ ADD skip r3,#0 skip r0,r1,r2 CMP r3,#0 ADDNE r0,r1,r2

By default, data processing instructions do not affect the condition code flags but the flags can be optionally set by using S. CMP does not need S.
loop SUBS r1,r1,#1 BNE loop

decrement r1 and set flags if Z flag clear then branch

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Condition Codes


The possible condition codes are listed below:



Note AL is the default and does not need to be specified

Suffix Description Equal Not equal Unsigned higher or same Unsigned lower Minus Positive or Zero Overflow No overflow Unsigned higher Unsigned lower or same Greater or equal Less than Greater than Less than or equal Always Flags tested Z=1 Z=0 C=1 C=0 N=1 N=0 V=1 V=0 C=1 & Z=0 C=0 or Z=1 N=V N!=V Z=0 & N=V Z=1 or N=!V

EQ NE CS/HS CC/LO MI PL VS VC HI LS GE LT GT LE AL
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INSTRUCTIONS SETS

Branch instructions:Branch : B{<cond>} label Branch with Link : BL{<cond>} sub_routine_label

  

Link bit 0 = Branch

1 = Branch with link

The offset for branch instructions is calculated by the assembler: By taking the difference between the branch instruction and the

target address minus 8 (to allow for the pipeline).



This gives a 26 bit offset which is right shifted 2 bits (as the

bottom two bits are always zero as instructions are word aligned) and stored into the instruction encoding.


This gives a range of 32 Mbytes.

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Branch instructions
 

Branch : Branch with Link :

B{<cond>} label BL{<cond>} subroutine_label

31

28 27

25 24 23

Cond

1 0 1 L

Offset

Link bit

0 = Branch 1 = Branch with link

Condition field

The processor core shifts the offset field left by 2 positions, sign-extends it and adds it to the PC
 

32 Mbyte range How to perform longer branches?

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Data processing Instructions



Consist of :
   

Arithmetic: Logical: Comparisons: Data movement:

ADD AND CMP MOV

ADC ORR CMN MVN

SUB EOR TST

SBC BIC TEQ

RSB

RSC

 

These instructions only work on registers, NOT memory. Syntax: <Operation>{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rn, Operand2
 

Comparisons set flags only - they do not specify Rd Data movement does not specify Rn

Second operand is sent to the ALU via barrel shifter.

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The Barrel Shifter

LSL : Logical Left Shift
CF

ASR: Arithmetic Right Shift

0

Destination

Destination

CF

Multiplication by a power of 2

Division by a power of 2, preserving the sign bit

LSR : Logical Shift Right

...0

ROR: Rotate Right

Destination
CF

Destination
Division by a power of 2

CF

Bit rotate with wrap around from LSB to MSB

RRX: Rotate Right Extended

Destination
CF

Single bit rotate with wrap around from CF to MSB

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Using the Barrel Shifter: The Second Operand

Operand 1 Operand 2
Register, optionally with shift operation


Shift value can be either be:

 

5 bit unsigned integer Specified in bottom byte of another register.

Barrel Shifter

Used for multiplication by constant

Immediate value


8 bit number, with a range of 0-255.



ALU

Rotated right through even number of positions

Allows increased range of 32-bit constants to be loaded directly into registers

Result
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Loading 32 bit constants



To allow larger constants to be loaded, the assembler offers a pseudoinstruction:  LDR rd, =const This will either:  Produce a MOV or MVN instruction to generate the value (if possible). or


Generate a LDR instruction with a PC-relative address to read the constant from a literal pool (Constant data area embedded in the code). => =>

For example  LDR r0,=0xFF  LDR r0,=0x55555555

MOV r0,#0xFF LDR r0,[PC,#Imm12] DCD 0x55555555

This is the recommended way of loading constants into a register

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Multiply


Syntax:
   

MUL{<cond>}{S} Rd, Rm, Rs MLA{<cond>}{S} Rd,Rm,Rs,Rn [U|S]MULL{<cond>}{S} RdLo, RdHi, Rm, Rs [U|S]MLAL{<cond>}{S} RdLo, RdHi, Rm, Rs

Rd = Rm * Rs Rd = (Rm * Rs) + Rn RdHi,RdLo := Rm*Rs RdHi,RdLo := (Rm*Rs)+RdHi,RdLo

Cycle time


Basic MUL instruction

  

2-5 cycles on ARM7TDMI 1-3 cycles on StrongARM/XScale 2 cycles on ARM9E/ARM102xE

  

+1 cycle for ARM9TDMI (over ARM7TDMI) +1 cycle for accumulate (not on 9E though result delay is one cycle longer) +1 cycle for long

Above are general rules - refer to the TRM for the core you are using for the exact details
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Single register data transfer

LDR LDRB LDRH LDRSB LDRSH


STR STRB STRH

Word Byte Halfword Signed byte load Signed halfword load

Memory system must support all access sizes

Syntax:
 

LDR{<cond>}{<size>} Rd, <address> STR{<cond>}{<size>} Rd, <address>

e.g. LDREQB

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Address accessed
 

Address accessed by LDR/STR is specified by a base register plus an offset For word and unsigned byte accesses, offset can be
 

An unsigned 12-bit immediate value (ie 0 - 4095 bytes).

LDR r0,[r1,#8]

A register, optionally shifted by an immediate value

LDR r0,[r1,r2] LDR r0,[r1,r2,LSL#2]

This can be either added or subtracted from the base register:

LDR r0,[r1,#-8] LDR r0,[r1,-r2] LDR r0,[r1,-r2,LSL#2]

For halfword and signed halfword / byte, offset can be:

 

An unsigned 8 bit immediate value (ie 0-255 bytes). A register (unshifted).

Choice of pre-indexed or post-indexed addressing

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Pre or Post Indexed Addressing?



Pre-indexed: STR r0,[r1,#12]

Offset 12 r1
0x20c

r0 0x5 0x5

Source Register for STR

Base Register

0x200

0x200

Auto-update form: STR r0,[r1,#12]!



Post-indexed: STR r0,[r1],#12

Updated Base Register Original Base Register r1 0x20c r1 0x200
0x200

Offset 12
0x20c

r0 0x5 0x5

Source Register for STR

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Thumb


Thumb is a 16-bit instruction set

  

Optimised for code density from C code (~65% of ARM code size) Improved performance from narrow memory Subset of the functionality of the ARM instruction set Switch between ARM and Thumb using BX instruction
ADDS r2,r2,#1
0

Core has additional execution state - Thumb


31

32-bit ARM Instruction

For most instructions generated by compiler:

   

Conditional execution is not used Source and destination registers identical Only Low registers used Constants are of limited size Inline barrel shifter not used

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ADD r2,#1

16-bit Thumb Instruction

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Example ARM-based System

16 bit RAM

32 bit RAM Interrupt Controller

nIRQ nFIQ

Peripherals

I/O

8 bit ROM

ARM Core

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