CHAPTER 2 VR4120A
66 Preliminary User’s Manual S15543EJ1V0UM
2.1.11 Instruction pipeline
The VR4120A has a 6-stage instruction pipeline. Under normal circumstances, one instruction is issued each
cycle.
A detailed description of pipeline is provided in Section 2.3 Pipeline.
2.2 MIPS III Instruction Set Summary
This section is an overview of the MIPS III ISA central processing unit (CPU) instruction set; refer to APPENDIX A
MIPS III INSTRUCTION SET DETAILS for detailed descriptions of individual CPU instructions.
2.2.1 MIPS III ISA instruction formats
Each MIPS III ISA CPU instruction consists of a single 32-bit word, aligned on a word boundary. There are three
instruction formats - immediate (I-type), jump (J-type), and register (R-type) - as shown in Figure 2-8. The use of a
small number of instruction formats simplifies instruction decoding, allowing the compiler to synthesize more
complicated and less frequently used instruction and addressing modes from these three formats as needed.
Figure 2-8. MIPS III ISA CPU Instruction Formats
I-type (immediate) op
015162021252631
J-type (jump) op target
0252631
R-type (register)
immediate:
funct:
sa:
rd:
target:
6-bit function field
5-bit shift amount
5-bit destination register specifier
26-bit unconditional branch target address
16-bit immediate value, branch displacement, or
address displacement
5-bit target (source/destination) register specifier or
branch condition
6-bit operation code
5-bit source register specifier
rt:
rs:
op:
op
015162021252631 561011
rs rt immediate
rs rt rd sa funct
2.2.1.1 Support of the MIPS ISA
The VR4120A CORE does not support a multiprocessor operating environment. Thus the synchronization support
instructions defined in the MIPS II and MIPS III ISA - the load linked and store conditional instructions - cause
reserved instruction exception. The load/link (LL) bit is eliminated.
Caution That the SYNC instruction is handled as a NOP instruction since all load/store instructions in
this processor are executed in program order.