Intel 8080 manual Machine Cycle Identification

be synchronized with the pulses of the driving clock. Thus, the duration of all states are integral multiples of the clock period.

To summarize then, each clock period marks a state; three to five states constitute a machine cycle; and one to five machine cycles comprise an instruction cycle. A full instruction cycle requires anywhere from four to eight- teen states for its completion, depending on the kind of in- struction involved.

Machine Cycle Identification:

With the exception of the DAD instruction, there is just one consideration that determines how many machine cycles are required in any given instruction cycle: the num- ber of times that the processor must reference a memory address or an addressable peripheral device, in order to fetch and execute the instruction. Like many processors, the 8080 is so constructed that it can transmit only one address per machine cycle. Thus, if the fetch and execution of an instruction requires two memory references, then the instruction cycle associated with that instruction consists of two machine cycles. If five such references are called for, then the instruction cycle contains five machine cycles.

Every instruction cycle has at least one reference to memory, during which the instruction is fetched. An in- struction cycle must always have a fetch, even if the execu- tion of the instruction requires no further references to memory. The first machine cycle in every instruction cycle is therefore a FETCH. Beyond that, there are no fast rules. It depends on the kind of instruction that is fetched.

Consider some examples. The add-register (ADD r) instruction is an instruction that requires on Iy a single machine cycle (FETCH) for its completion. In this one-byte instruction, the contents of one of the CPU's six general purpose registers is added to the existing contents of the accumulator. Since all the information necessary to execute the command is contained in the eight bits of the instruction code, only one memory reference is necessary. Three states are used to extract the instruction from memory, and one additional state is used to accomplish the desired addition. The entire instruction cycle thus requires only one machine cycle that consists of four states, or four periods of the ex- ternal clock.

Suppose now, however, that we wish to add the con- tents of a specific memory location to the existing contents of the accumulator (ADD M). Although this is quite similar in principle to the example just cited, several additional steps will be used. An extra machine cycle will be used, in order to address the desired memory location.

The actual sequence is as follows. First the processor extracts from memory the one-byte instruction word ad- dressed by its program counter. This takes three states. The eight-bit instruction word obtained during the FETCH machine cycle is deposited in the CPU's instruction register and used to direct activities during the remainder of the instruction cycle. Next, the processor sends out,as an address,

the contents of its Hand L registers. The eight-bit data word returned during this MEMORY READ machine cycle is placed in a temporary register inside the 8080 CPU. By now three more clock periods (states) have elapsed. In the seventh and final state, the contents of the temporary regis- ter are added to those of the accumulator. Two machine cycles, consisting of seven states in all, complete the "ADD Mil instruction cycle.

At the opposite extreme is the save Hand L registers (SHLD) instruction, which requires five machine cycles. During an "SH LD" instruction cycle, the contents of the processor's Hand L registers are deposited in two sequen- tially adjacent memory locations; the destination is indi- cated by two address bytes which are stored in the two memory locations immediately following the operation code byte. The following sequence of events occurs:

(1)A FETCH machine cycle, consisting of four states. During the first three states of this machine cycle, the processor fetches the instruc- tion indicated by its program counter. The pro- gram counter is then incremented. The fourth state is used for internal instruction decoding.

(2)A MEMORY READ machine cycle, consisting of three states. During this machine cycle, the byte indicated by the program counter is read from memory and placed in the processor's Z register. The program counter is incremented again.

(3)Another MEMORY READ machine cycle, con- sisting of three states, in which the byte indica- ted by the processor's program counter is read from memory and placed in the W register. The program counter is incremented, in anticipation of the next instruction fetch.

(4)A MEMORY WRITE machine cycle, of three states, in which the contents of the L register are transferred to the memory location pointed to by the present contents of the Wand Z regis- ters. The state following the transfer is used to increment the W,Z register pair so that it indi- cates the next memory location to receive data.

(5)A MEMORY WRITE machine cycle, of three states, in which the contents of the H register are transferred to the new memory location pointed to by the W,Z register pair.

In summary, the "SHLD" instruction cycle contains five machine cycles and takes 16 states to execute.

Most instructions fall somewhere between the ex- tremes typified by the "ADD r" and the "SHLD" \ostruc- tions. The input (INP) and the output (OUT) instructions, for example, require three machine cycles: a FETCH, to obtain the instruction; a MEMORY READ, to obtain the address of the object peripheral; and an INPUT or an OUT- PUT machine cycle, to complete the transfer.

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