Microprocessors provide a number of ways to specify the location of data to be used in calculations. For example, one of the data values to be used in an add instruction may be encoded as part of that instruction's opcode, the raw machine language produced by the assembler as it parses your assembly language program. This is known as immediate addressing. Alternatively, perhaps the opcode will instead contain a memory address which holds the data (direct addressing). More commonly, the instruction will specify that an auxiliary register holds the memory address which in turn holds the data (indirect addressing). The processor knows which addressing mode is being used by examining special bit fields in the instruction opcode. Knowing the basic addressing modes of your microprocessor is important because they map directly into assembly language syntax. Many annoying and sometimes hard-to-find bugs are caused by inadvertently using the wrong addressing mode in an instruction. Also, in any assembly language, the need to use a particular addressing mode often dictates which instruction one picks for a given task. Chapter five, Data Addressing, in the CPU and Peripherals reference contains extended descriptions of most of the addressing modes described below.

Accumulators: src, dst Whenever the abbreviations src or dst are used in the assembly language syntax description for an instruction, it means that only the accumulators A and B may be used for that particular operand. These are seen everywhere, but two classic examples are ld, which always loads data into an accumulator from somewhere else, and sth/stl, which always store data from an accumulator to somewhere else. Examples:

Memory-mapped Registers: MMR, MMRx, MMRy Many of the TMS320C54x registers are memory-mapped, meaning that they occupy real addresses at the low end of data memory space. The most commonly used of these are the auxiliary registers AR0 through AR7. Whenever the abbreviation MMR is used in the assembly language syntax description for an instruction, it means that any memory-mapped register may be used for that particular operand. Only eight instructions use memory-mapped register addressing: ldm, mvdm, mvmd, mvmm, popm, pshm, stlm, and stm. With mvmm, since the instruction accepts two memory-mapped register operands, MMRx and MMRy, only AR0-AR7 and SP may be used. Do not use an asterisk in front of ARx variables here, since this is not indirect addressing. Examples:

Immediate Addressing: #k3, #k5, K, #k9, #lk Immediate addressing means that the numerical value of the data is itself provided within the assembly instruction. Various TMS320C54x instructions allow immediate data of 3, 5, 8, 9, or 16 bits in length, which are signified in the assembly language syntax descriptions with one of the above symbols. The 16-bit form is the most common and is signified by #lk. 16-bit immediate values always require an extra instruction word and therefore take an extra machine cycle to execute. An immediate data operand is almost always specified in assembler syntax by prepending a pound sign (#) to the data. Depending on the context, the assembler may assume that you meant immediate addressing anyway. Examples:

Labels make this more complicated. Recall that a label in your assembly code is nothing more than shorthand for the memory address where the labeled code or data is stored. So does an instruction like

mean to store the contents of memory location coef in AR2, or does it mean to store the memory address coef itself in AR2? The second interpretation is correct. Because the stm instruction has only one form, expecting a #lk immediate operand, the assembler does not care whether the label is prefixed with a pound sign or not. Still, it would have been better for us to include the pound sign in the above example for clarity. Many instructions have several versions allowing the use of different addressing modes (see ld for a good example of this). With these instructions, including the pound sign is not optional when specifying immediate addressing. The only safe rule, then, is always to prefix the label with a pound sign if you wish to specify the memory address of the label and not the contents of that address. If you are not sure how a particular instruction has been assembled, you can always examine the .lst file produced by the assembler, and compare the hexadecimal opcodes listed to the left of the assembly instructions with the assembly opcodes given in the assembly language manual (Chapter 4 of the Mnemonic Instruction Set reference).

Direct Addressing: Smem and others In the modes called direct addressing by TI, the instruction opcode contains a memory offset (see the "dma" bits on page 5-8 of the CPU and Peripherals reference) seven bits long, which is combined with either the DP (data pointer) or SP (stack pointer) register to obtain a complete 16-bit data-memory address. This divides the data memory into pages of 128 words each. SP is initialized for you in the core file and should not need to be modified. SP-referenced direct addressing is used by the pshd, pshm, popd, and popm instructions for stack manipulation, as well as by all subroutine calls and returns, which save program addresses on the stack. DP-referenced direct addressing is available wherever you see the Smem abbreviation in an assembly syntax description. The advantage of DP-referenced addressing over the *(lk) form described in the next section is that DP-referenced addressing will not add an extra instruction word (and corresponding extra machine cycle). The disadvantage is that it is limited to 128 words of contiguous memory, and you have to make sure that DP points to the right 128 words. DP may be changed with the ld instruction as needed. Examples:

Make sure you understand that the numbers 10 and 6 above are interpreted as memory addresses, not data values. To get data values, you would need to use a pound sign in front of the numbers.

Absolute Addressing: dmad, pmad, *(lk)/Smem This seems to be TI's term for all the forms of direct addressing which it does not call direct addressing! It is represented in assembly-instruction syntax-definitions using one of the above abbreviations (*(lk) addressing is available when the syntax definition says Smem).

dmad dmad (Data Memory ADdress) operands are used by mvxx data move instructions and represent 16-bit memory addresses in data memory whose contents are used in the instruction. Example:

pmad pmad (Program Memory ADdress) operands are used by the firs, macd, macp, mvdp, and mvpd instructions, as well as all subroutine calls and branching instructions. They represent 16-bit addresses in program memory whose contents are used in the instruction, or jumped to in the case of branch instructions. Other than subroutine calls and branches, the most common use of a pmad is for the firs instruction. Example:

coefs is a label in the program section of the code, not the data section.

*(lk) *(lk) addressing is a syntactic oddity. The asterisk symbol generally means that indirect addressing is being used (see below), but this is actually direct addressing with a 16-bit data memory address encoded in the instruction's last word. The reason for the asterisk is that TI does set the "I" bit in the opcode, usually denoting indirect addressing, and this form can only be used when an Smem is called for in the assembly syntax. Other bits in the low byte of the first instruction word tell the processor that the "*(lk) exception" is to be used, and to fetch the memory address in the next word (see the MOD bits on page 5-10 of the CPU and Peripherals reference). You can easily recognize this addressing mode in .lst files because the low byte of the first instruction word always equals F8h. Examples:

Indirect Addressing: Smem, Xmem, Ymem Indirect addressing on the TMS320C54x always uses the auxiliary registers AR0 through AR7 and comes in two basic flavors. These are easily recognized from the assembly language syntax descriptions as either Smem or Xmem/Ymem.

Smem In Smem indirect addressing, only one indirect address is used in the instruction and a number of variations is possible (see the table on page 5-13 of the CPU and Peripherals reference). An asterisk is always used, which signifies indirect addressing. Any of the registers AR0-AR7 may be used, with optional modifications: automatic post-decrement by one, pre- and post-increment by one, post-increment and post-decrement by n (n being stored in AR0), and more, including many options for circular addressing (which automatically implements circular buffers) and bit-reversed addressing (which is useful for FFTs).

Xmem/Ymem Xmem/Ymem indirect addressing is generally used in instructions that need two different indirect addresses, although there are a few instances where an Xmem by itself is specified in order to save bits in the opcode for other options. In Xmem/Ymem indirect addressing, fewer bits are used to encode the option modifiers in the opcode; hence, fewer options are available: post-increment by one, post-decrement by one, and post-increment by AR0 with circular addressing. Examples:

The mar (modify address register) instruction is unusual in the sense that it takes an Smem operand but does nothing with the data pointed to by the ARx register. Its purpose is to perform any of the allowed register modifications discussed above without having to do anything else. This is often handy when you are using an Xmem/Ymem-type instruction but need to do an ARx modification that is only allowed with an Smem-type operand.

Summary The ld instruction is illustrative of the many possible addressing modes which can be selected with the proper choice of assembly language syntax: