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Unit 2: The Microprocessor and Its Architecture (Cont.) : Introduction To Protected Mode Memory Addressing

Protected mode memory addressing in the 80286 allows access to data and programs located above the first 1MB of memory and within the first 1MB. It uses segment selectors stored in segment registers to select descriptors from descriptor tables, rather than directly storing segment addresses in registers. Descriptors describe a segment's location, length, and access rights. The 80386 additionally allows 32-bit offsets instead of 16-bit offsets. Descriptor tables contain up to 16,384 descriptors total, selected by segment selectors, with each descriptor containing a base address, limit, and access rights defining how a program accesses the associated memory segment.

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37 views3 pages

Unit 2: The Microprocessor and Its Architecture (Cont.) : Introduction To Protected Mode Memory Addressing

Protected mode memory addressing in the 80286 allows access to data and programs located above the first 1MB of memory and within the first 1MB. It uses segment selectors stored in segment registers to select descriptors from descriptor tables, rather than directly storing segment addresses in registers. Descriptors describe a segment's location, length, and access rights. The 80386 additionally allows 32-bit offsets instead of 16-bit offsets. Descriptor tables contain up to 16,384 descriptors total, selected by segment selectors, with each descriptor containing a base address, limit, and access rights defining how a program accesses the associated memory segment.

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Payal Shah
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UNIT 2: THE MICROPROCESSOR AND ITS

ARCHITECTURE (CONT.)

Introduction to Protected Mode Memory Addressing


Protected-mode memory addressing (80286) allows access to data & programs located
above first 1MB of memory &
within first 1MB of memory.
In place of segment-address, segment-register contains a selector that selects a descriptor
from a descriptortable. (The extended memory system is accessed via a segment-address plus an
offset-address, just as in the real mode. The difference is that the segment-address is not held in
the segment-register. In the protected-mode, the segment starting-address is stored in a descriptor
that is selected by the segment-register).
Descriptor describes
memory-segment's location
length &
access rights
Another difference in the 80386 is that the offset-address can be a 32-bit number instead of a
16-bit number.

Selectors & Descriptors


Selector (located in the segment-register) selects one of 8192 descriptors from one of 2 tables
of descriptors.
Descriptor describes the location, length and access rights of the segment of memory.
There are 2 descriptor-tables: 1) Global descriptor table & 2) Local descriptors
table.
Global-descriptors contain segment-definitions that apply to all programs
whereas local-descriptors are usually unique to an application.
Each descriptor-table contains 8192 descriptors, so a total of 16384 total descriptors are
available to an application at any time.
A descriptor contains
1) Base-address locates starting-address of memory-segment
2) Segment-limit contains last offset-address found in a segment (For example, if a segment
begins at memory location F00000H and ends at location F000FFH, the base-address is
F00000H and the limit is FFH).
3) Access rights byte defines how the memory-segment is accessed via a program.
For 80286 microprocessor, the base-address is a 24-bit address, so segments begin at any
location in its 16MB of memory.
In 80386, if G (granularity) =0, the limit specifies a segment-limit of 00000H to FFFFFH. If
G=1, the value of the limit is multiplied by 4KB.
In the 64-bit descriptor, if L=1, 64-bit address in a Pentium4 with 64-bit extensions is
selected. if L=0, 32-bit compatibility mode is selected
The AV bit is used by some operating-systems to indicate that the segment is available
(AV=1) or not available (AV=0).
D bit indicates how 80386 instructions access register & memory-data in protected- or real-
mode.
If D=0, the instructions are 16-bit instructions, compatible with the 8086 microprocessor.
(This means that the instructions use 16-bit offset addresses and 16-bit register by default).
If D=1, the instructions are 32-bit instructions.
Figure 2-6: The 80286 through Core2 64-bit descriptors

Figure 2-9: Using DS register to select a descriptor from the global descriptor table

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