Hardware Reference Manual 41
Intel® IXP2800 Network Processor
Technical Description
In Example 8, the second instruction will access the Local Memory location one past the source/
destination of the first.
2.3.5 Addressing Modes
GPRs can be accessed in either a context-relative or an absolute addressing mode. Some
instructions can specify either mode; other instructions can specify only Context-Relative mode.
Transfer and Next Neighbor registers can be accessed in Context-Relative and Indexed modes, and
Local Memory is accessed in Indexed mode. The addressing mode in use is encoded directly into
each instruction, for each source and destination specifier.

2.3.5.1 Context-Relative Addressing Mode

The GPRs are logically subdivided into equal regions such that each Context has relative access to
one of the regions. The number of regions is configured in the CTX_ENABLE CSR, and can be
either 4 or 8. Thus a Context-Relative register number is actually associated with multiple different
physical registers. The actual register to be accessed is determined by the Context making the
access request (the Context number is concatenated with the register number specified in the
instruction). Context-Relative addressing is a powerful feature that enables eight (or four) different
contexts to share the same code image, yet maintain separate data.
Table 5 shows how the Context number is used in selecting the register number in relative mode.
The register number in Table 5 is the Absolute GPR address, or Transfer or Next Neighbor Index
number to use to access the specific Context-Relative register. For example, with eight active
Contexts, Context-Relative Register 0 for Context 2 is Absolute Register Number 32.
Example 8. LM_ADDR Post-Increment
alu[*l$index0++, --, ~B, gpr_n]
alu[gpr_m, --, ~B, *l$index0]
Table 5. Registers Used By Contexts in Context-Relative Addressing Mode
Number of
Active
Contexts
Active
Context
Number
GPR
Absolute Register Numbers S_Transfer or
Neighbor
Index Number
D_Transfer
Index Number
A Port B Port
8
(Instruction
always specifies
registers in
range 0 – 15)
0 0 – 15 0 – 15 0 – 15 0 – 15
1 16 – 31 16 – 31 16 – 31 16 – 31
2 32 – 47 32 – 47 32 – 47 32 – 47
3 48 – 63 48 – 63 48 – 63 48 – 63
4 64 – 79 64 – 79 64 – 79 64 – 79
5 80 – 95 80 – 95 80 – 95 80 – 95
6 96 – 111 96 – 111 96 – 111 96 – 111
7 112 – 127 112 – 127 112 – 127 112 – 127
4
(Instruction
always specifies
registers in
range 0 – 31)
0 0 – 31 0 – 31 0 – 31 0 – 31
2 32 – 63 32 – 63 32 – 63 32 – 63
4 64 – 95 64 – 95 64 – 95 64 – 95
6 96 – 127 96 – 127 96 – 127 96 – 127