8085 Architecture

The various units of a

microprocessor are listed below
• Accumulator
• Arithmetic and logic Unit
• General purpose register
• Program counter
• Stack pointer
• Temporary register
• Flags
• Instruction register and Decoder
• Timing and Control unit
• Interrupt control
• Address bus and Data bus
• Address buffer and Address-Data
buffer
ALU
In addition to the arithmetic & logic
circuits, the ALU includes the
accumulator, which is part of every
arithmetic & logic operation.
Interrupt
ALU includes a temporary register used
Interrupt is the method of creating a temporary
for holding data temporarily during the
halt during program execution and allows
execution of the operation. This
peripheral devices to access the microprocessor.
temporary register is not accessible by
the programmer.
General Purpose Registers
B, C, D, E, H & L (8 bit registers) Can be
used singly
can be used as 16 bit register pairs – BC,
DE, HL
H & L can be used as a data pointer (holds
memory address)

– Special Purpose Registers

Accumulator (8 bit register)
Store 8 bit data and result of an operation
Flags
Sign Flag
Used for indicating the sign of the data in the
accumulator Sign flag is set if negative (1 –
negative)
Sign flag is reset if positive (0 –positive)

Zero Flag – Is set if result obtained after an

operation is 0. Is set following an increment or
decrement operation of that register

Carry Flag – Is set if there is a carry or borrow

from arithmetic operation.

Auxillary Carry Flag – Is set if there is a carry

out of bit 3

Parity Flag – Is set if parity is even – Is cleared

if parity is odd
Program Counter (PC) –
This is a register that is used to control the sequencing of the execution of
instructions.
– This register always holds the address of the next instruction.
– Since it holds an address, it must be 16 bits wide.
Stack pointer (PC)
The stack pointer is also a 16-bit register that is used to point into memory.
– The stack is an area of memory used to hold data that will be retreived soon.
– The stack is usually accessed in a Last In First Out (LIFO) fashion.

A stack is nothing but the portion of RAM (Random access memory). So, does that mean the
stack pointer points to portion of RAM?

Yes. Stack pointer maintains the address of the last byte that is entered into stack. Each time
when the data is loaded into stack, Stack pointer gets decremented. Conversely it is
incremented when data is retrieved from stack.

Temporary Register
As the name suggests this register acts as a temporary memory during the arithmetic and logical
operations. Unlike other registers, this temporary register can only be accessed by the
microprocessor and it is completely inaccessible to programmers. Temporary register is an 8-bit
register.
Instruction Register and Decoder
Instruction register is 8-bit register just like every other register of microprocessor. Consider
an instruction. The instruction may be anything like adding two data's, moving a data,
copying a data etc. So, the instruction registers are specifically to store the instructions that
are fetched from memory. There is an Instruction decoder which decodes the information
present in the Instruction register for further processing

Timing and Control Unit

Timing and control unit is a very important unit as it synchronizes the registers and flow of data
through various registers and other units.
This unit consists of an oscillator and controller sequencer which sends control signals needed for
internal and external control of data and other units.

Control Signals: RD’, WR’, ALE

ALE is used for provide control signal to synchronize the components of microprocessor and
timing for instruction to perform the operation.
RD (Active low) and WR (Active low) are used to indicate whether the operation is reading
the data from memory or writing the data into memory respectively.
Status Signals: S0, S1, IO/M’
IO/M (Active low) is used to indicate whether the operation belongs to the memory or
peripherals.

DMA (Direct Memory Access) Signals: HOLD, HLDA,

READY
DMA is a process of communication for data transfer between memory and input/output,
controlled by an external circuit called DMA controller, without involvement of CPU.
• First, DMA controller sends a request by making making Bus Request (BR) control line
high. When MP receives high signal to HOLD pin, it first completes the execution of
current machine cycle, it takes few clocks and sends HLDA signal to the DMA
controller.

• After receiving HLDA through Bus Grant (BG) pin of DMA controller, the DMA controller
takes control over system bus and transfers data directly between memory and I/O
without involvement of CPU. During DMA operation, the processor is free to perform
next job which does not need system bus.

• At the end of data transfer, the DMA controller terminates the request by sending low
signal to HOLD pin and MP regains control of system bus by making HLDA low.
RESET
This RESET key is used to clear the program counter and update it with the 0000H memory
location. When this RESET pin is activated by any external key, then all the internal operations are
suspended for that time. After that, the execution of the program can begin at the zero memory
address.

Interrupt
8085 microprocessor chips have some pins for interrupt like TRAP, RST 5.5, RST 6.5, and RST 7.5.
The microprocessor can be interrupted from the normal instructions and asked to perform some
other emergency operations, which are also known as Service routines. The microprocessor
resumes its operation
after the completion Service routine.

READY
The 8085 microprocessor has a pin called READY. If the READY signal is high (logic 1), it indicates
that the peripheral or memory is ready to complete the data transfer. If the READY signal is low
(logic 0), it tells the microprocessor to wait before completing the current operation. The READY
signal is particularly important when interfacing the 8085 microprocessor with slower memory
devices or peripherals

HOLD
Address buffer and Address-Data buffer

The contents of the stack pointer and program counter are loaded into the address buffer and
address-data buffer. These buffers are then used to drive the external address bus and
address-data bus. As the memory and I/O chips are connected to these buses, the CPU can
exchange desired data to the memory and I/O chips.

Serial Input/output control

The input and output of serial data can be carried out using 2 instructions in 8085.
SID-Serial Input Data
SOD-Serial Output Data
Two more instructions are used to perform serial-parallel conversion needed for serial I/O
devices.
• SIM
• RIM
The Temporary Register is typically used in conjunction with:
A) Accumulator B) Program Counter C) Stack Pointer D) Instruction Register

Which of the following registers is not directly accessible to the programmer in the
8085 microprocessor?
B) Accumulator B) Temporary Register C) Stack Pointer D) Program Counter

Which flag in the 8085 flag register is used to indicate a borrow in a subtraction
operation?

The output of the ALU in the 8085 microprocessor is directly fed into the:
C) Data busB) Address busC) AccumulatorD) Stack pointer

When the HOLD signal is active, which parts of the 8085 microprocessor continue to
operate normally?
D) Only the ALUB) The entire microprocessor haltsC) Internal registers and the ALUD) Memory
operations continue while all others stop.

Which of the following actions occur when the 8085 microprocessor is reset?
A) The memory contents are erased.B) The microprocessor enters HALT state.C) All the internal
registers are cleared.D) The Program Counter is set to 0000H, and the microprocessor begins
execution from this address.