Differences Between ARM6 and Earlier ARM Processors


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The ARM6 series (ARM6, ARM60 and ARM600) is a family of ARM processors which have 32-bit program counters. Earlier ARMs (ARM2, ARM3 and ARM2aS) had a 26-bit program counter (PC). This application note describes the major differences between the two types of processor.

1 The Program Counter and Program Status Register

The introduction of the larger program counter has meant that the flags and control bits which previously occupied the other bits of R15 (the combined PC and PSR) have been moved to a separate register. The extra space in the new register (the CPSR, Current Program Status Register) allows for more control bits, and a further three mode bits have been added to allow for a larger number of operating modes.

The removal of the PSR to a separate register also means that it is no longer possible to save these flags automatically in R14 when a Branch with Link instruction is executed or when an exception occurs. Program analysis has shown that the saving of these flags is required in just 3% of subroutine calls, so there is only a slight overhead in explicitly saving them on a stack when necessary. To cope with the requirement of saving them when an exception occurs, a further five registers have been provided to hold a copy of the CPSR at the time of the exception. These registers are the Saved Program Status Registers (SPSRs). There is one SPSR for each of the modes that the processor may enter as a result of the various types of exception.

The expansion of the PC to 32 bits also means that the Branch instruction can no longer specify a branch to the entire program space, and is now limited to +/- 32 Mbytes. Branches greater than +/- 32 Mbytes can be made with other instructions, but the equivalent of the Branch with Link instruction will require a separate instruction to save the PC in R14.

2 Operating Modes

There are a total of ten operating modes in two overlapping sets. Four modes allow the processor to behave like the earlier ARM processors with 26-bit PC: User26, IRQ26, FIQ26 and Supervisor26, which correspond to the four operating modes of the ARM2 and ARM3 processors. There are a further four operating modes User32, IRQ32, FIQ32, Supervisor32 which can be used when the process is running with the full 32bit PC.

The final two modes are Undefined32 and Abort32. These are entered when the Undefined instruction and Abort exceptions occur.They have been added to remove restrictions on Supervisor mode programs which exist with the ARM2 and ARM3 processors. The two sets of User, FIQ, IRQ and Supervisor modes each share a set of banked registers to allow them to maintain some private state at all times. The Abort and Undefined modes also have a pair of banked registers each for the same purpose.

3 Instruction Set Changes

The instruction set is changed in two major areas: the introduction of new instructions and restrictions on the use of existing ones.

3.1 New Instructions

The new instructions allow access to the CPSR and SPSR registers. They are formed by using opcodes from the data processing group of instructions that were previously unused. Specifically, these are the TST, TEQ, CMP and CMN instructions with the S flag clear. They are now known as MSR which moves data into the CPSR and SPSR registers, and MRS which moves from CPSR and SPSR to a general register. The data moved to CPSR and SPSR can be either the contents of the general register or an immediate value.

3.2 Instruction Set Limitations

Certain limitations have been introduced on the use of ARM instructions. In all cases, if these restrictions are not observed, the behaviour of the processor is the same as that of the ARM2aS macrocell. However there is no guarantee that future ARM processors will behave in the same way.

4 Operating ARM6 in 26-bit Modes

When configured for 32-bit program and data space, the ARM6 family supports operation in 26-bit modes for compatibility with the ARM processors that have a 26-bit address space. The 26-bit modes are User26, FIQ26, IRQ26 and Supervisor26. When a 26-bit mode is selected, the programmer's model reverts to that of existing 26-bit ARMs (ARM2, ARM3, ARM2aS). The behaviour is that of the ARM2aS macrocell with the following differences:

In all other respects, the ARM6 family behaves like a 26-bit ARM when operating in 26-bit mode. The relevant bits of the CPSR appear to be incorporated back into R15 to form the PC/PSR with the I and F bits in bits 27 and 26. The instruction set behaves like that of the ARM2aS macrocell with the addition of the MRS and MSR instructions.

5 Transferring between 26- and 32-bit Modes in ARM6 Series Processors

A program executing in a privileged 32-bit mode can enter 26-bit mode by executing a MSR instruction that alters the mode bits to one of the values shown below:

Table 1: CPSR Mode bit settings
M[4:0] Mode Accessible registers
00000 USR26 PC/PSR, R14...R0,CPSR
00001 FIQ26 PC/PSR,R14_fiq...R8_fiq, R7...R0,CPSR,SPSR_fiq
00010 IRQ26 PC/PSR,R14_irq...R13_irq, R12...R0,CPSR,SPSR_irq
00011 SVC26 PC/PSR,R14_svc...R13_svc, R12...R0,CPSR,SPSR_svc

Transfer between 26- and 32-bit mode happens automatically whenever an exception occurs in 26-bit mode. Note that an exception (including software interrupt) arising in 26-bit mode will enter 32-bit mode and the saved value in R14 will contain only the PC, even though the PSR was also considered part of R15 when the exception arose.

In addition, the MSR instruction provides the means for a program in a privileged 26-bit mode to alter the mode bits to change to a 32-bit mode.