Datasheet
PIC32MZ Embedded Connectivity with Floating Point Unit (EF) Family
DS60001320B-page 50 Preliminary 2015 Microchip Technology Inc.
3.4 EJTAG Debug Support
The processor core provides for an Enhanced JTAG
(EJTAG) interface for use in the software debug of
application and kernel code. In addition to standard
User mode and Kernel modes of operation, the proces
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sor core provides a Debug mode that is entered after a
debug exception (derived from a hardware breakpoint,
single-step exception, etc.) is taken and continues until
a Debug Exception Return (DERET) instruction is
executed. During this time, the processor executes the
debug exception handler routine.
The EJTAG interface operates through the Test Access
Port (TAP), a serial communication port used for trans
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ferring test data in and out of the core. In addition to the
standard JTAG instructions, special instructions
defined in the EJTAG specification specify which
registers are selected and how they are used.
3.5 MIPS DSP ASE Extension
The MIPS DSP Application-Specific Extension
Revision 2 is an extension to the MIPS32 architecture.
This extension comprises new integer instructions and
states that include new HI/LO accumulator register
pairs and a DSP control register. This extension is
crucial in a wide range of DSP, multimedia, and DSP-
like algorithms covering Audio and Video processing
applications. The extension supports native fractional
format data type operations, register Single Instruction
Multiple Data (SIMD) operations, such as add,
subtract, multiply, and shift. In addition, the extension
includes the following features that are essential in
making DSP algorithms computationally efficient:
• Support for multiplication of complex operands
• Variable bit insertion and extraction
• Implementation and use of virtual circular buffers
• Arithmetic saturation and overflow handling
support
• Zero cycle overhead saturation and rounding
operations
3.6 microMIPS ISA
The processor core supports the microMIPS ISA,
which contains all MIPS32 ISA instructions (except for
branch-likely instructions) in a new 32-bit encoding
scheme, with some of the commonly used instructions
also available in 16-bit encoded format. This ISA
improves code density through the additional 16-bit
instructions while maintaining a performance similar to
MIPS32 mode. In microMIPS mode, 16-bit or 32-bit
instructions will be fetched and recoded to legacy
MIPS32 instruction opcodes in the pipeline’s I stage, so
that the processor core can have the same microAptiv
UP microarchitecture. Because the microMIPS instruc
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tion stream can be intermixed with 16-bit halfword or
32-bit word size instructions on halfword or word
boundaries, additional logic is in place to address the
word misalignment issues, thus minimizing
performance loss.