Experiment 3

Assembly Language Programming

Every computer, no matter how simple or complex, has a microprocessor that manages the
computers arithmetical, logical and control activities. A computer program is a collection of
numbers stored in memory in the form of ones and zeros. CPU reads these numbers one at
a time, decodes them and perform the required action. We term these numbers as machine
language.
Although machine language instructions make perfect sense to computer but humans cannot
comprehend them. A long time ago, someone came up with the idea that computer programs
could be written using words instead of numbers and a new language of mnemonics was developed and named as assembly language. An assembly language is a low-level programming
language and there is a very strong (generally one-to-one) correspondence between the language
and the architectures machine code instructions.
We know that computer cannot interpret assembly language instructions. A program should
be developed that performs the task of translating the assembly language instructions to machine language. A computer program that translates the source code written with mnemonics
into the executable machine language instructions is called an assembler. The input of an
assembler is a source code and its output is an executable object code. Assembly language
programs are not portable because assembly language instructions are specific to a particular
computer architecture. Similarly, a different assembler is required to make an object code for
each platform.

The ARM Architecture

The ARM is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) with a relatively simple implementation
of a load/store architecture, i.e. an architecture where main memory (RAM) access is performed
through dedicated load and store instructions, while all computation (sums, products, logical
operations, etc.) is performed on values held in registers. ARM supports a small number of
addressing modes with all load/store addresses being determined from registers and instruction
fields only.
The ARM architecture provides 16 registers, numbered from R0 to R15, of which the last three
have special hardware significance.
R13, also known as SP, is the stack pointer, that is it holds the address of the top element of the
program stack. It is used automatically in the PUSH and POP instructions to manage storage
32

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label
opcode

operand1, operand2, ; Comment

and recovery of registers in the stack.

R14, also known as LR is the link register, and holds the return address, that is the address of
the first instruction to be executed after returning from the current function.
R15, also known as PC is the program counter, and holds the address of the next instruction.

Assembly Language Syntax

ARM assembler commonly uses following instruction format:
Normally, the first operand is the destination of the operation. The number of operands in an
instruction depends on the type of instruction, and the syntax format of the operand can also
be different.

Label
Label is an optional first field of an assembly statement. Labels are alphanumeric names used
to define the starting location of a block of statements. Labels can be subsequently used in
our program as an operand of some other instruction. When creating the executable file the
assembler will replace the label with the assigned value. Labels must be unique in the executable
file because an identical label encountered by the Assembler will generate an error.
ARM assembler has reserved first character of a line for the label field and it should be left
blank for the instructions with no labels. In some compilers, labels can be optionally ended
with colon(:) but it is not accepted by the ARM assembler as an end of the label field.
Defining appropriate labels makes your program look more legible. Program location can be
easily found and remembered using labels. It is easier to use certain functionality of your
program in an entirely different code .i.e., your code can be used as a library program. You
do not have to figure out memory addresses because it is a tedious task especially when the
instruction size in your microcontroller is not fixed.

Opcode (Mnemonics)
Opcode is the second field in assembly language instruction. Assembly language consists of
mnemonics, each corresponding to a machine instruction. Using a mnemonic you can decide

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what operation you want to perform on the operands. Assembler must translate each mnemonic
opcode into their binary equivalent.

Operands
Next to the opcode is the operand field which might contain different number of operands.
Some of the instructions in Cortex-M3 will have no operand while other might have as many as
four operands. The number of operands in an instruction depends on the type of instruction,
and the syntax format of the operand can also be different. Normally, the first operand is the
destination of the operation.

Comments
Comments are messages intended only for human consumption. They have no effect on the
translation process and indeed are not acted on by the ARM Assembler. The comment field
of an assembly language instruction is also optional. A semicolon signies that the rest of the
line is a comment and is to be ignored by the assembler. If the semicolon is the rst non-blank
character on the line, the entire line is ignored. If the semicolon follows the operands of an
instruction, then only the comment is ignored by the assembler. The purpose of comments is
to make the program more comprehensible to the human reader. If you want to modify the
program in response to a product update and you havent used that code before then comments
go a long way to helping comprehension.

A First Assembly Program

In this section we learn to write a simple assembly language program with and without the
startup file. This program can be used as a template for writing any assembly language program.
An assembler is requires to compile an assembly language program. Keil has an ARM assembler
which can compile and build ARM assembly language programs.
Assembly language is only a set of instructions for specific hardware resources. To drive the
assembly and linking process, we need to us directives, which are interpreted by the assembler.
Some commonly used directives are explained in section -

Template for ARM Assembly Program

;

F i r s t ARM A s s e m b l y l a n g u a g e p r o g r a m
PRESERVE8
THUMB
; m a r k s t h e THUMB mode o f o p e r a t i o n
AREA
| . t e x t | , CODE , READONLY , ALIGN =2
ENTRY
; s t a r t i n g p o i n t o f t h e code e x e c u t i o n

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EXPORT _ _ m a i n
;
__main
; address
; U s e r Code S t a r t s
END
; End o f t h e

d e c l a r a t i o n o f i d e n t i f i e r main
o f t h e main f u n c t i o n
from the next l i n e
p r o g r a m , m a t c h e d w i t h ENTRY k e y w o r d

Template for ARM Assembly Program

Example 3.1: Assembly Program with Startup File

; T h i s i s t h e f i r s t ARM A s s e m b l y l a n g u a g e p r o g r a m . D e s c r i b e t h e
; f u n c t i o n a l i t y o f t h e p r o g r a m a t t h e t o p . You c a n a l s o i n c l u d e
; t h e i n f o r e g a r d i n g t h e a u t h o r and t h e d a t e
; ;;

Directives
PRESERVE8
THUMB
; M a r k s t h e THUMB mode o f o p e r a t i o n

; ;;;;;;;;;

The u s e r c o d e ( p r o g r a m ) i s p l a c e d i n CODE AREA

AREA | . t e x t | , CODE , READONLY , ALIGN =2

ENTRY
; Marks t h e s t a r t i n g p o i n t o f code e x e c u t i o n
EXPORT _ _ m a i n
__main
; U s e r Code S t a r t s f r o m t h e n e x t l i n e
MOV
MOV
ADD

R5 , #0 x 1 2 3 4
R3 , #0 x 1 2 3 4
R6 , R5 , R3

; S t o r e some a r b i t r a r y n u m b e r s

B
END

STOP

; Endless loop
; End o f t h e p r o g r a m , m a t c h e d w i t h
; ENTRY k e y w o r d

; Add t h e v a l u e s i n R5 a n d R3 a n d s t o r e t h e
; r e s u l t i n R6

STOP

Example 3.2: Assembly Language Program without Startup File

; ;;

Directives
PRESERVE8
THUMB
; M a r k s t h e THUMB mode o f o p e r a t i o n

Stack
EQU
0 x00000100
; D e f i n e s t a c k s i z e t o be 2 5 6 b y e s
; A l l o c a t e space f o r the s t a c k .
AREA STACK , N O I N I T , READWRITE , ALIGN =3

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CHAPTER 3. ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING

StackMem
;

SPACE

Stack

I n i t i a l i z e the two e n t r i e s o f v e c t o r t a b l e .
AREA RESET , DATA , READONLY
EXPORT _ _ V e c t o r s

__Vectors
DCD S t a c k M e m + S t a c k
DCD R e s e t _ H a n d l e r

; s t a c k p o i n t e r v a l u e when s t a c k i s e m p t y
; reset vector

ALIGN
; ;;;;;;;;;

The u s e r c o d e ( p r o g r a m ) i s p l a c e d i n CODE AREA

AREA
| . t e x t | , CODE , READONLY , ALIGN =2
ENTRY
; Marks t h e s t a r t i n g p o i n t o f t h e code e x e c u t i o n
EXPORT R e s e t _ H a n d l e r
Reset_Handler
; U s e r Code S t a r t s f r o m t h e n e x t l i n e
MOV
MOV
ADD

R5 , #0 x 1 2 3 4
R3 , #0 x 1 2 3 4
R6 , R5 , R3

; Move some a r b i t r a r y n u m b e r i n R5

B
END

STOP

; Endless loop
; End o f t h e p r o g r a m , m a t c h e d w i t h
; ENTRY k e y w o r d

; Add t h e v a l u e s i n R5 a n d R3 a n d s t o r e t h e
; r e s u l t i n R6

STOP

Assembler Directives
Every program to be executed by a computer is a sequence of statements that can be read by
the humans. An assembler must differentiate between the statements that will be converted
into executable code and that instruct the assembler to perform some specific function.
Assembler directives are commands to the assembler that direct the assembly process. Assembler directives are also called pseudo opcodes or pseudo-operations. They are executed by the
assembler at assembly time not by the processor at run time. Machine code is not generated
for assembler directives as they are not directly translated to machine language. Some tasks
performed by these directives are:
1. Assign the program to certain areas in memory.
2. Define symbols.
3. Designate areas of memory for data storage.
4. Place tables or other fixed data in memory.
5. Allow references to other programs.

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Attribute
CODE
DATA
READONLY
READWRITE
NOINIT

Explanation
Contains machine instructions. READONLY is the default.
Contains data, not instructions. READWRITE is the default.
Indicates that this area should not be written to.
Indicates that this area may be read from or written to.
Indicates that the data area is initialized to zero. It contains only
reservation directives with no initialized values.

ARM assembler supports a large number of assembler directives but in this lab manual we will
discuss only some important directives which are required for this lab.

AREA Directive
AREA directive allows the programmer to specify the memory location to store code and data.
Depending on the memory configuration of your device, code and data can reside in different
areas of memory. A name must be specified for an area directive. There are several optional
comma delimited attributes that can be used with AREA directive. Some of them are discussed
below.

Example 3.3

AREA

E x a m p l e , CODE , READONLY
; user code

; An e x a m p l e c o d e s e c t i o n .

ENTRY and END Directives

The first instruction to be executed within an application is marked by the ENTRY directive.
Entry point must be specified for every assembly language program. An application can contain
only a single entry point and so in a multi-source module application, only a single module will
contain an ENTRY directive.
This directive causes the assembler to stop processing the current source file. Every assembly
language source module must therefore finish with this directive.

Example 3.4

AREA
ENTRY
Start

MyCode , CODE , READONLY

; Entry point for the a p p l i c a t i o n

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CHAPTER 3. ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING

; user code
END

; I n f o r m s t h e a s s e m b l e r a b o u t t h e end o f a s o u r c e

file

EXPORT and IMPORT Directives

A project may contain multiple source files. You may need to use a symbol in a source file that
is defined in another source file. In order for a symbol to be found by a different program file,
we need to declare that symbol name as a global variable. The EXPORT directive declares a
symbol that can be used in different program files. GLOBAL is a synonym for EXPORT.
The IMPORT directive provides the assembler with a name that is not defined in the current
assembly.

Example 3.5

AREA

DoAdd

E x a m p l e , CODE , READONLY
IMPORT U s e r _ C o d e
;
;
EXPORT DoAdd
;
;
;
ADD
R0 , R0 , R1

I m p o r t t h e f u n c t i o n name f r o m
other source f i l e .
E x p o r t t h e f u n c t i o n name
t o be u s e d b y e x t e r n a l
modules .

ARM, THUMB Directives

The ARM directive instructs the assembler to interpret subsequent instructions as 32-bit ARM
instructions. If necessary, it also inserts up to three bytes of padding to align to the next word
boundary. The ARM directive and the CODE32 directive are synonyms.
The THUMB directive instructs the assembler to interpret subsequent instructions as 16-bit
Thumb instructions. If necessary, it also inserts a byte of padding to align to the next halfword
boundary.
In files that contain a mixture of ARM and Thumb code Use THUMB when changing from ARM
state to Thumb state. THUMB must precede any Thumb code. Use ARM when changing from
Thumb state to ARM state. ARM must precede any ARM code.

Example 3.6

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AREA

start

C h a n g e S t a t e , CODE , READONLY
ARM
; T h i s s e c t i o n s t a r t s i n ARM s t a t e
LDR
r 0 , = s t a r t +1 ; L o a d t h e a d d r e s s a n d s e t t h e
; least significant bit
BX
r0
; B r a n c h and exchange i n s t r u c t i o n s e t s

THUMB
MOV

r1 , # 1 0

; N o t n e c e s s a r i l y i n same s e c t i o n
; F o l l o w i n g i n s t r u c t i o n s a r e Thumb
; Thumb i n s t r u c t i o n s

ALIGN Directive
Use of ALIGN ensures that your code is correctly aligned. By default, the ALIGN directive
aligns the current location within the code to a word (4-byte) boundary. ALIGN 2 can also be
used to align on a halfword (2-byte) boundary in Thumb code. As a general rule it is safer to
use ALIGN frequently through your code.

PRESERVE8 Directive
The PRESERVE8 directive specifies that the current file preserves 8-byte alignment of the stack.
LDRD and STRD instructions (double-word transfers) only work correctly if the address they
access is 8-byte aligned. If your code preserves 8-byte alignment of the stack, use PRESERVE8
to inform the linker. The linker ensures that any code that requires 8-byte alignment of the stack
is only called, directly or indirectly, by code that preserves 8-byte alignment of the stack.

Data Reservation Directives (DCB, DCD, DCW)

ARM assembler supports different data definition directives to insert constants in assembly
code. This directive allows the programmer to enter fixed data into the program memory and
treats that data as a permanent part of the program. Different variants of these directives
are:
1. DCB (Define Constant Byte) to define constants of byte size.
2. DCW (Define Constant Word) allocates one or more halfwords of memory, aligned on
two-byte boundaries.
3. DCD (Define Constant Data) allocates one or more words of memory, aligned on four-byte
boundaries.

Example 3.7

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CHAPTER 3. ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING

data

DCD

0, 0, 0

; D e f i n e s 3 words

initialized

to zeros

SPACE Directive
The SPACE directive reserves a zeroed block of memory. ALIGN directive must be used to
align any code following a SPACE directive.

Example 3.8

AREA
data1

MyData , DATA , READWRITE

SPACE
255
; d e f i n e s 255 b y t e s o f z e r o e d s t o r e