Microprocessor & Microcontroller: Architecture & Addressing Modes

Internal Architecture of 8085 Microprocessor

The architecture of 8085 consists of three main sections, ALU (Arithmetic and Logical Unit), timing and control unit and Registers (shown in the following figure).

 Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU)

The ALU performs the actual numerical and logical operations.

• The ALU performs the following arithmetic and logical operations.
  • Addition, Subtraction
  • Logical AND, Logical OR, Logical Ex - OR
  • Complement (logical NOT)
  • Increment, Decrement
  • Left shift, Right shift
  • Clear, etc.
• ALU includes the accumulator, the temporary register, the arithmetic and logic circuits and flags. It always stores the result of operations in Accumulator.

Timing & Control Unit

It generates timing and control signals, which are necessary for the execution of instructions.

• It controls data flow between CPU and peripherals (including memory).
• It provides status, control and timing signals, which are required for the operation of memory and I/O devices.
• 8085 System Bus: Microprocessor communicates with memory and other devices (input and output) using three buses: Address Bus, Data Bus and Control Bus.
• Address Bus: The Address bus consists of 16 wires. The size of the address bus determines the size of memory, which can be used. To communicate with memory the microprocessor sends an address on the address bus to the memory. The address bus is unidirectional, i.e., numbers only sent from microprocessor to memory.
• Data Bus: Bus is bi-directional. The size of the data bus determines what arithmetic can be done. Data bus also carries instructions from memory to the microprocessor.
• Memory size = 2^A x D where, A denotes the address lines, and D denotes the data lines.
• Control Bus: Control bus are various lines which have specific functions for coordinating and controlling μP operations. The control bus carries control signals partly unidirectional, partly bi-directional. Control signals are things like reading or write.

Registers

8085 has six general purpose registers to store 8-bit data, these are identified as B, C, D, E, H and L. They can be combined as register pairs BC, DE and HL to perform some 16-bit operations.

• Accumulator: The accumulator is an 8-bit register included as a part of Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU). This register is used to store 8-bit data and to perform arithmetic and logical operations. The result of an operation is stored in the accumulator.
• Flag Register: The ALU includes five flip-flops. They are called Zero (Z), Carry (CY), Sign (S), Parity (P) and Auxiliary Carry (AC) flags. The microprocessor uses these flags to test data conditions. The conditions (set or reset) of the flags are tested through the software instructions.  The combination of the flag register and the accumulator is called Program Status Word (PSW) and PSW is the 16-bit unit for stack operation.

• Program Counter (PC): This 16-bit register deals with sequencing the execution of the instruction. The microprocessor uses this register to sequence the execution of the instructions. The function of the program counter is to point to the memory address from which the next byte is to be fetched.
• Stack Pointer (SP): The stack pointer is also a 16-bit register used as a memory pointer. It points to a memory location in read-write memory, called the stack.
• Instruction Register/Decoder: Temporary store for the current instructions of a program. Latest instruction sent here from memory prior to execution. The decoder then takes instruction and decodes or interprets the instruction. Decoded instruction then passed to next stage.
• Memory Address Register: Holds address, received from PC of next program instruction.
• Control Generator: It generates a signal within μP to carry out the instructions which have been decoded.
• Register Selector: This block controls the use of the register stack.
• General Purpose Registers: μP requires extra registers for versatility. It can be used to store additional data during a program.

 Operations of Microprocessor 

The microprocessor performs the following four operations using address bus, data bus and control bus:

• Memory Read: Reads data (or instruction) from memory.
• Memory Write: Writes data (or instruction) into memory.
• I/O Read: Accepts data from the input device.
• I/O Write: Sends data to an output device.

The 8085 Addressing Modes

The various formats for specifying operands are called the addressing modes. For 8085, they are

• Immediate Addressing:
  • Data is provided in the instruction.
  • Load the immediate data to the destination provided.
  • Example: MVI A, 12 H

• Register Addressing:
  • Data is provided through the registers.
  • Example: MOV B, C
• Direct Addressing:
  • Used to accept data from outside devices to store in the accumulator or send the data stored in the accumulator to the outside device.
  • Example: MOV A, [1000]
• Indirect Addressing: 
  • The effective address is calculated by the processor and the contents of the address is used to form the second address. The second address is where the data is stored.
  • Example: MOV A, [[1000]]
• Implicit addressing: 
  • In this addressing mode, the data itself specifies the data to be operated upon.
  • Example: CMA; Complement the contents of accumulator