Instruction set of 8086 microprocessor

Basic of 8086

• It has 32 addressing modes.

• It has 1 million instruction. From that 117 is basic
instruction.
• The instruction length is not fixed
• The 8086 provides 8 bit and 16 bit instruction
 Instruction format

• A machine language instruction format has more than one

number of field

• 1st field is called operation code field or op-code 

indicates the type of operation to be performed by the CPU.

• 2nd field is called operand field  indicates data field on

which the operation by instruction op-code.

• It has 6 general format of instruction in 8086 instruction set.

• Length of an instruction may vary from 1 byte to 6 byte

Operation code field Operand field i.e
or op-code data field

Operation code field

or op-code
op-code byte:=
- This byte is always present in each instruction .
-This indicates the operation to be carried out by 8086
- Format of op-code byte:=

Op-code D W
Op-code field indicates the operation to be carried out

D  D bit indicates whether the register is a source /distinction register.

D=0 indicates that the register is source register.

D=1 indicates that the register the distinction register.

W  word or byte .This bit is present if byte or word option is available

for that instruction .

w bit indicates whether the instruction is a byte or word instruction.

W=0 indicates instruction that operates on bytes.

W=1 indicates instruction that operates on words

 One byte instruction

• This format is only 1 byte long and may have implicit data or
register operands.

• The least 3 bits of op-code are used to specify the register

operand.

• Otherwise all the 8 bit form an op-code and the operand are
implied.
 Register to register

• This format is 2 byte long

• 1st byte of code consist of operation code of instruction and

width of the operand specified by w bit.

• 2nd byte of code consist of register & R/M field.

• REG indicates the name of the register i.e source or

destination.

• R/M indicates source or destination operand is located in

register
 1st Byte
6 bit 1 bit

Op-Code W

2nd Byte

1 bit 1 bit 3 bit 3 bit

1 1 REG R/M
Register to/memory with no displacement

• This format is also 2 byte long

• 1st byte of code same as that of register to register format

• 2nd byte of code consist of MOD , REG,R/M field.

• MOD indicates the displacement is present or not .if

present then it is 8bit or 16 bit.
 Mod Displacement

0 0 No displacement

0 1 Low order displacement

with sign extended to 16
bit
1 0 Low order and high order
displacement
1 1 r/m field is treated as a
‘reg’ field
 1st Byte

6 bit 1 bit

Op-Code W

2nd Byte

2 bit 3 bit 3 bit

MOD REG R/M

 Register to/from memory with
displacement

• This type of instruction format contain on or two

additional bytes for displacement along with 2 byte format
of register to/from memory without displacement
 1st Byte

6 bit 2 bit

Op-Code W

2nd Byte
2 bit 3 bit 3 bit
MOD REG R/M

4th Byte
3rd Byte
8 bit
8 bit

Lower Byte displacement Higher Byte displacement

 Immediate operand to register

• In this format first byte as well as the 3 bits

from the second byte which are used for REG
field in case of register –to-register are used
for op-code.
 1st Byte

8 bit

OPCODE

2nd Byte
1 bit 1 bit 3 bit 3 bit

1 1 REG R/M

4th Byte
3rd Byte
8 bit
8 bit

Lower Byte DATA Higher byte DATA

Immediate operand to memory with 16 bit
displacement

• This type of instruction format requires 5 or 6 byte for

coding
• The first two byte contain the information of OPCODE
,MOD ,R/M field
 Addressing modes of 8086

• Addressing modes indicates a way of locating data

• Depending upon the data type used in the instruction &

memory addressing modes any instruction may belong to one
or more addressing modes

• According to the flow of instruction execution instruction

categorized as

1) sequential control flow instruction

2) control transfer instruction

-Sequential control flow instruction are the instruction which
after execution ,transfer the control to the next instruction
appearing immediately after it in the program e.g the
arithmetic , logical , data transfer and process control
instruction.

-The control transfer instruction transfer the control

predefined address of the memory somehow specified in the
instruction after their execution e.g : INT ,CALL , JMP
,RET etc
 Immediate addressing modes
• In this mode the immediate data is the part of the
instruction and appear in the form of byte

• So immediate data may be 8 bit or 16 bit in length.

• Immediate data can be accessed quickly as they are

available in an instruction queue. Hence no extra bus
cycle is required.

• E.g: Mov AL,46H = AL is loaded with 8 bit immediate

data 46H

• Mov BX,1234H=BX is loaded with 16 bit immediate data

1234H.
 Direct addressing mode

• In this mode a 16 bit memory address of operand is

directly specified in the instruction as a part of it.

• The offset of displacement may be 8 bit or 16 bit which

follow the instruction op-code

• The physical address is calculated by adding the offset

to the base segment register i.e cs ,ds, es, ss

• E.g: Mov AL,[3000H]= AL will be loaded with the

content of memory location whose offset is 3000H
 Register addressing mode

• In this mode the data is stored in a register and it is referred

using the particular register.

• Register is source or destination.

• The instruction of this mode is compact and faster in execution

• Register are 8bit or 16 bit

• E.g: mov AX,CX= copies the contents of CX to AX

 Register indirect addressing mode

• In this mode ,the address of the memory location that contain

data is determined in an indirect way ,using offset register such
as BX ,SI ,DI register.

• The default segment register is either DS , ES

• If BP is used then SS is default segment register.

• E.g: MOV AX,[BX] = copies the content of memory location

whose offset is in BX register
Register relative addressing mode

• In this mode the data is available at an effective formed

by adding 8 bits or 16 bits displacement with contents of
any one of the register such as BX,BP,SI or DI in the
default DS and ES segment.

• E.g:= MOV AX,50[BX]= copies the word from memory

location whose offset will be calculated by adding the
content 50 with the content of BX register
 Base indexed addressing mode

• In this mode the effective address of data is formed by

adding the content of a base register BX or BP to the
content of an index register SI or DI with default segment
DS and ES

• E.g: MOV AX,[BX][SI]= copies the word from memory

location whose offset is calculated by adding the content
of BX with content of SI
 Relative base indexed addressing mode

• In this mode the effective address of data is calculated by

adding the 8 bit or 16 bit displacement with the sum of
base register BX or BP and SI or DI register in the default
segment DS and Es

• E.g: MOV AX,60[BX][SI]=copies word from memory

location whose offset is calculated by adding the 60H with
the content of BX and SI
 Instruction set of 8086

• Data transfer /copy instructions

• Arithmetic &logical instructions

• Brach instructions

• Loop instructions

• Machine control instructions

• Flag manipulation instructions

• Shift and rotate instructions

• String instructions
 Data transfer/copy instructions

• These types of instruction used to transfer data from

source operand to destination operand.

• All the store,move,load,exchange,input & output

instruction come in this category
 Mov destination, source
• Syntax: Mov destination,source
• Operation: destination source
• The mov instruction copies a word(16 bit) or byte(8 bit) of data from
a specified source to a specified destination
• The destination can be a register or a memory location.
• The source can be a register or memory location or immediate
number.
• The source &destination both can not be memory location at one
time.
• The source &destination in a mov instruction must be of type byte or
they must both be of type word. It can not affect any flag.
• E.g: mov cx,037H= put an immediate no 037h in cx
mov ax,bx = copy contents of bx into ax
 PUSH-push to stack
• Syntax: PUSH source
• Operation: SPSP-2
SS:[SP]higher byte of source
SS:[SP-1]lower byte of source
-The push instruction decrements the stack pointer by 2 & copies a word
from source to the location in the stack segment where the stack
pointer pointes
-The source of the word can be a general-purpose register or memory
-out of 2 decremented stack address the higher byte occupies the higher
address & the lower byte occupies the lower address.
e.g: PUSH BX= decrement sp by 2 ,copy BX to stack i.e content of BH
register to higher address of stack & BL register to lower address of
stack
 POP-pop from stack
• Syntax: pop destination
• Operation:
Lower byte of destinationSS:[SP]
Higher byte of destinationSS:[SP+1]
SPSP+2
- The pop instruction copies a word from stack location
pointed by the stack pointer to a destination specified in
the instruction.
- The destination can be a general-purpose register,segment
register or memory location
- The data in the stack is not changed .After the word is
copied to the specified destination,the stack pointer is
automatically incremented by 2 to point the next word on
the stack
- E.g:
1) POP DX= copy a word from top of stack to DX, sp=sp+2
i.e content of [sp] to
DL register and content of [sp+1] to DH regsiter.
2) POP DS = copy a word from top of the stack to DS
register sp=sp+2
3) POP [8000] = copy a word from top of stack to memory
loction 8000h and 8001h
 XCHG-Exchange
 Syntax: XCHG destination,source
 Operation: destination ,source
 This instruction exchanges the contents of a register with the
contents of another register
 The instruction can not directly exchange the contents of two
memory location.
 A memory location can be specified as the source or destination by
any of 24 addressing modes
 The source and destination both be word or byte
 The segment register cannot be used in the instruction.
 E.g: XCHG AX,BX= exchange the word in AX with word
in BX
XCHG BL,CH= exchange the byte in BL with byte in
CH
 IN-input data from a port
• Syntax: IN accumulator,port
• Operation:
AL [port address] for byte
AL[port address]
AH[port address +1] for word
-The IN instruction copies data from a port to destination
which may be AL or AX
The address of the port can be specified in the instruction
directly or indirectly.
- For the fixed port type the 8 bit address of a port is specified directly
in the instruction
- For variable port type the 16 bit address of a port is specified in DX
register only.
- DX register must always be loaded with the 16 bit port address before
the IN instruction
- E.g:
IN fixed port type:
1) IN AL,80H= Input a byte from port whose address is 80H
2) IN AX,80H= Input a word from port whose address is 80H
In variable port type:
1) MOV DX,8000H= initalize DX to point port with port address
2) IN AL,DX= input a byte from 8 bit port whose address is in DX to AL
 OUT- output data to a port
• Syntax: OUT port,accumulator
• Operation:
[port]AL for byte
[port+1]AH for word
- This instruction is used for writing to an output port.
- The OUT instruction copies a byte from AL or from AX
to specified port
- The address of the port is specified in the instruction
directly or indirectly
-For the fixed port type the 8 bit address of a port is
specified directly in the instruction.
-For variable port type the 16 bit address of a port is
specified in DX register
-DX register must always be loaded with the 16 bit port
address before the OUT instruction.
-E.g: 1) OUT AX,AL = copy the content of AL to port 80H
2) MOV DX, 6000H= initalize DX with 16 bit port address
3) OUT DX,AL= copy the contents of AL to port.
 LEA-load effective address
• Syntax: LEA register ,source
• Operation:
16 bit registereffective address of memory location.
-this instruction determines the offset of the variable or
memory location names as the source and loads this
offset in the specified 16 bit register.
E.g: LEA BX,ARRAY= load BX with the offset of variable
ARRAY.
LDS/LES-load register & DS/ES with
words from memory
• Syntax: LDS/LES register,memory address of first word.
• Operation:
For LDS: 16 bit register—[memory address]
DS—[memory address+2]

For LES: 16 bit register—[memory address]

ES– [memory address +]
This instruction loads new values into specified register &
add into DS/ES register from four successive memory
location.
It then copies a word from next two consecutive memory
location into the DS register.
E.g:
1) LDS BX,[1234H]= copy the contents of memory location
1234H in BL, contents of 1235H to BH and the content of
1236H &1237H in ES register.
LAHF-copy low byte of flag register to AH

• Syntax: LAHF
• Operation: AHlower byte of flag register
• This instruction loads the AH register with the lower byte of
the flag register.
• This instruction may be used to observe the status of all the
condition flags
• The lower byte of 8086 flag register is same as the flag byte of
the 8085
SAHF-store AH register to lower byte of
flag register
• Syntax: SAHF
• Operation:
lower byte of flag registerAH
- This instruction copies the contents of AH register to the
lower byte of 8086 flag register
- This instruction set or reset the condition code flag in a
lower byte of the flag register depending upon bit
position in AH
- If a bit in AH is 1 the flag corrpossponding to bit
position is set else reset
 PUSHF

• This instruction decrements the stack pointer by two and

copies the word in the flag register to the memory location
pointed by the stack register
• E.g: PUSHF
 POPF

• This instruction cpoies a word from the memory location at the

top of stack to the flag register and incrment stack pointer by
two
• E.g: POPF
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