Addressing modes

Opcode is an instruction that tells processor what to do with the variable or data written besides it.

Oprand is a variable that stores data(and data can be a memory address or any data that we want to process).

e.g. MVI A,B

here instruction MVI is an opcode. A & B are oprands. 

MOV A,#6AH

Here the data 6A is the operand, often known as source data. When this instruction is executed, the data 6AH is moved to accumulator A. 

There are 5 different ways to execute this instruction and hence we say, we have got 5 addressing modes for 8051. 

They are 1) Immediate addressing mode  2) Direct addressing mode 3) Register direct addressing mode 4) Register indirect addressing mode 5) Indexed addressing mode. 

Immediate Addressing Mode

MOV A, #6AH

In general we can write MOV A, #data

This addressing mode is named as “immediate” because it transfers an 8-bit data immediately to the accumulator (destination operand).

 The opcode for MOV A, # data is 74H. The opcode is saved in program memory at 0202 address. The data 6AH is saved in program memory 0203.

When the opcode 74H is read, the next step taken would be to transfer whatever data at the next program memory address (here at 0203) to accumulator A.

Note: The ‘#’ symbol before 6AH indicates that operand is a data (8 bit). If ‘#’ is not present then the hexadecimal number would be taken as address.

Direct Addressing Mode

This is another way of addressing an operand. Here the address of the data (source data ) is given as operand. Lets take an example.

MOV A, 04H

Here 04H is the address of register 4 of register bank#0. When this instruction is executed, what ever data is stored in register 04H is moved to accumulator. In the picture below we can see, register 04H holds the data 1FH. So the data 1FH is moved to accumulator.

Note: We have not used ‘#’ in direct addressing mode, unlike immediate mode. If we had used ‘#’, the data value 04H would have been transferred to accumulator instead 0f 1FH.

Register Direct Addressing Mode

In this addressing mode we use the register name directly (as source operand). An example is shown below.

MOV A, R4

At a time registers can take value from R0,R1…to R7. You may already know there are 32 such registers. So how you access 32 registers with just 8 variables to address registers? Here comes the use of register banks. There are 4 register banks named 0,1,2 and 3. Each bank has 8 registers named from R0 to R7. At a time only one register bank can be selected. Selection of register bank is made possible through a Special Function Register (SFR) named Processor Status Word (PSW). PSW is an 8 bit SFR where each bit can be programmed. Bits are designated from PSW.0 to PSW.7 Register banks are selected using PSW.3 and PSW.4 These two bits are known as register bank select bits as they are used to select register banks. A picture below shows the PSW register and the Register Bank Select bits with status.

 So  in register direct addressing mode, data is transferred to accumulator from the register (based on which register bank is selected).

Take a look at the picture below.

 

 

Register Indirect Addressing Mode

So in this addressing mode, address of the data (source data to transfer) is given in the register operand.

MOV A, @R0

Here the value inside R0 is considered as an address, which holds the data to be transferred to accumulator.

Example: If R0 holds the value 20H, and we have a data 2F H stored at the address 20H, then the value 2FH will get transferred to accumulator after executing this instruction. 

Indexed Addressing Mode

Well lets see two examples first.

MOVC A, @A+DPTR and MOVC A, @A+PC

where DPTR is data pointer and PC is program counter (both are 16 bit registers). Lets take the first example.

MOVC A, @A+DPTR

What’s the first impression you have now? The source operand is @A+DPTR and we know we will get the source data (to transfer) from this location. It is nothing but adding contents of DPTR with present content of accumulator. This addition will result a new data which is taken as the address of source data (to transfer). The data at this address is then transferred to accumulator.