8051 Microcontroller –

Architecture, Intro to Assembly

EE4380 Fall 2002

Pari vallal Kannan

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8051 Architecture
l Programmer’s View
– Register Set
– Instruction Set
– Memory map
l Hardware Designer’s View
– Pinout
– Timing characteristics
– Current / Voltage requirements

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Programmer’s View – Register Set
l Registers
– A, B, R0 to R7 : 8 bit registers
– DPTR : [DPH:DPL] 16 bit register
– PC : Program Counter (Instruction Ptr) 16bits
– 4 sets of register bank R0-R7
– Stack pointer SP
– PSW : Program Status Word (a.k.a Flags)
– SFR : Special Function Registers
l Control the on-board peripherals

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Assembly – Absolute Basics
l Intel Assembly format
Operation destination source ; comment
l Values are to be preceded by a # sign
– #55, #32 etc
l Hex values are to be followed by H
– #55H, #32H
l If the first figure in a hex quantity is a letter (A-F) then a
0 must precede it
– #0FFH, #0C1H, #0D2H
l No operation : NOP !

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Register Set – Accumulator A, ACC
l Commonly used for mov and arithmetic
l Implicitly used in opcodes or referred to as
ACC or by its SFR address 0E0H
l Example of Implicit reference
– Instruction : mov A, R0 (copy contents of R0 to A)
– Opcode : E8
– The Accumulator is implicitly coded in the opcode
l Explicit reference to Accumulator
– Instruction : push ACC
– Opcode: C0 E0

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Register Set – B Register
l Commonly used as a temporary register, much
like a 9th R register
l Used by two opcodes
– mul AB, div AB
l B register holds the second operand and will
hold part of the result
– Upper 8bits of the multiplication result
– Remainder in case of division

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Register Set – R0 to R7
l Set of 8 registers R0, R1, … R7, each 8 bit
wide
l Widely used as temporary registers
l Available in 4 banks (effectively 4x8 registers)
l Bank is chosen by setting RS1:RS0 bits in
PSW
l Default bank (at power up) is the bank0

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Registers - DPTR
l 16 bit register, called Data Pointer
l Used by commands that access external
memory
l Also used for storing 16bit values
mov DPTR, #data16 ; setup DPTR with 16bit ext address
movx A, @DPTR ; copy mem[DPTR] to A
l DPTR is useful for string operations, look up
table (LUT) operations

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Registers - PC
l PC is the program counter
l Referred to as the Instruction Pointer (IP) in other
microprocessors
l PC points to the next program instruction always
l After fetching an instruction (1 or multi byte), PC is
automatically incremented to point to the next
instruction
l Cannot directly manipulate PC (exceptions JMP
statements)
l Cannot directly read contents of PC (tricks available)

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Registers - SP
l SP is the stack pointer
l SP points to the last used location of the stack
– Push operation will first increment SP and then copy data
– Pop operation will first copy data and then decrement SP
l In 8051, stack grows upwards (from low mem to high
mem) and can be in the internal RAM only
l On power-up, SP is at 07H
l Register banks 2,3,4 (08H to 1FH) is the default stack
area
l Stack can be relocated by setting SP to the upper
memory area in 30H to 7FH
– mov SP, #32H

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Registers - PSW
l Program Status Word is a “bit addressable” 8bit
register that has all the flags
l CY - Carry Flag
– Set whenever there is a carry in an arithmetic operation
l AC - Aux. Carry Flag
– Carry from D3 to D4. Used for BCD operation
l P - Parity Flag
– P=1 if A has odd number of 1s
– Even parity
l OV - Overflow Flag
– Set if any arithmetic operation causes an overflow

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Flags - Illustration
lAddition example
38 0011 1000
+ 2F 0010 1111
--------- ---------------
67 0110 0111
--------- ---------------
CY = 0
AC = 1
P =1

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Registers - SFRs
l Control the operation
of on-board
peripherals
l Special Function
Registers at direct
addresses 80H to FFH
l 8051 Clones may have
additional SFRs

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8051 - Memory Map
Memory Start End Signal Instruction
Type
Internal RAM 00H 7FH MOV A, xxH

External RAM 0000H FFFFH RD, MOVX A, @DPTR

l Internal ROM is vendor dependant

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8051 – Instruction Set
l Data Transfer
– Move/Copy data from one location to another
– mov, movc, movx, push, pop, xch, xchd
l Logical
– Perform logic operations on data
– anl, orl, xrl, clr, cpl, rl, rlc, rr, rrc, swap
l Arithmetic
– Perform arithmetic operations on data
– add, addc, subb, inc, dec, mul, div
l Program control
– Control the program flow (jumps, subroutine calls)
– jmp, ajmp, ljmp, sjmp, jc, jnc, jb, jnb, jbc, jz, jnz, acall, lcall,
cjne, djnz, ret, reti
l NOP
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8051 Assembly Introduction
l Assembly statement structure
[label:] opcode [operands] [;comment]
l Example
start: mov A, #D0H ;code starts here
l Assembler directives
– ORG xxxxH : origin, start assembling at xxxxH
– EQU : define a constant
l count EQU 25
– DB : define byte, defines data
l DATA1: DB 28
l DATA2: DB “hello world”
– END : end of assembly file

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Assembly Design Flow
l Create the assembly source file test.asm
l Assemble the asm file
– as51 test.asm
– Assembler produces error and code list in test.lst
– If no errors, assembler produces .obj file
l Link the .obj files to produce an .abs file
l Create hex file from the .abs file
l Most assemblers directly produce the .hex file
l Download the .hex file onto the board or burn it into an
eprom.

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Assembly Example #1
l Program to fill up the first 4 registers in the
l Target 8051 dev system register bank with some numbers and find their
sum
– Std 8051 device
– 2K on-chip ROM running ORG 0x30 ;skip the IVT area
a monitor program Start: mov R0, #10
mov R1, #0A5H
– 32K external RAM at mov R2, #1
address 0x0000 to mov R3, #0x20
0x7FFF clearA: mov A, #0 ;now A = 0
– This RAM is both code Addup: add A, R0 ;now A = A + R0
and data add A, R1
add A, R2
– First 0x30 locations in
add A, R3
external RAM is
mov R4, A ;store sum in R4
dedicated for the Interrupt mov DPTR, #7FFF
Vector Table (IVT) movx @DPTR, A ;store in ext. mem
Done: sjmp done ;loop here forever
END

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Class –2 Review
l What are the different views/models of a uP ?
l What are the registers available in the 8051 ?
l What are the functions of the 8051 registers ?
l What is stack, PC, SFR, PSW/Flags ?
l What is an instruction set ?
l What is a memory map ? Why is it needed ?
l What is an assembly language program ? How
does it look ?

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