Datasheet

PIC18F87J72 FAMILY
DS39979A-page 64 Preliminary  2010 Microchip Technology Inc.
FIGURE 6-7: USE OF THE BANK SELECT REGISTER (DIRECT ADDRESSING)
6.3.2 ACCESS BANK
While the use of the BSR with an embedded 8-bit
address allows users to address the entire range of data
memory, it also means that the user must always ensure
that the correct bank is selected. Otherwise, data may
be read from, or written to, the wrong location. This can
be disastrous if a GPR is the intended target of an oper-
ation, but an SFR is written to instead. Verifying and/or
changing the BSR for each read or write to data memory
can become very inefficient.
To streamline access for the most commonly used data
memory locations, the data memory is configured with
an Access Bank, which allows users to access a
mapped block of memory without specifying a BSR.
The Access Bank consists of the first 96 bytes of
memory (00h-5Fh) in Bank 0 and the last 160 bytes of
memory (60h-FFh) in Bank 15. The lower half is known
as the “Access RAM” and is composed of GPRs. The
upper half is where the device’s SFRs are mapped.
These two areas are mapped contiguously in the
Access Bank and can be addressed in a linear fashion
by an 8-bit address (Figure 6-6).
The Access Bank is used by core PIC18 instructions
that include the Access RAM bit (the ‘a’ parameter in
the instruction). When ‘a’ is equal to ‘1’, the instruction
uses the BSR and the 8-bit address included in the
opcode for the data memory address. When ‘a’ is ‘0’,
however, the instruction is forced to use the Access
Bank address map; the current value of the BSR is
ignored entirely.
Using this “forced” addressing allows the instruction to
operate on a data address in a single cycle without
updating the BSR first. For 8-bit addresses of 60h and
above, this means that users can evaluate and operate
on SFRs more efficiently. The Access RAM below 60h
is a good place for data values that the user might need
to access rapidly, such as immediate computational
results or common program variables. Access RAM
also allows for faster and more code efficient context
saving and switching of variables.
The mapping of the Access Bank is slightly different
when the extended instruction set is enabled (XINST
Configuration bit = 1). This is discussed in more detail
in Section 6.6.3 “Mapping the Access Bank in
Indexed Literal Offset Mode”.
6.3.3 GENERAL PURPOSE
REGISTER FILE
PIC18 devices may have banked memory in the GPR
area. This is data RAM which is available for use by all
instructions. GPRs start at the bottom of Bank 0
(address 000h) and grow upwards towards the bottom of
the SFR area. GPRs are not initialized by a Power-on
Reset and are unchanged on all other Resets.
Note 1: The Access RAM bit of the instruction can be used to force an override of the selected bank (BSR<3:0>)
to the registers of the Access Bank.
2: The MOVFF instruction embeds the entire 12-bit address in the instruction.
Data Memory
Bank Select
(2)
7
0
From Opcode
(2)
0000
000h
100h
200h
300h
F00h
E00h
FFFh
Bank 0
Bank 1
Bank 2
Bank 14
Bank 15
00h
FFh
00h
FFh
00h
FFh
00h
FFh
00h
FFh
00h
FFh
Bank 3
through
Bank 13
0010
11111 111
7
0
BSR
(1)
11111111