The 8086 Microprocessor and its Architecture

Khaled A. Al-Utaibi
alutaibi@uoh.edu.sa



The 8086 Registers
The 8086 Memory Addressing
The 8086 Memory Organization

Data Registers:
−The data group consists of the AX, BX, CX & DX registers.
−Each one of these registers is 16-bit wide, but can be
accessed as a byte or a word.
Figure 1: Data Registers

Pointer & Index Registers:
−The registers in this group are all 16-bits wide.
−They can not be accessed as a low or high byte.
−They are used as memory pointers.
−Register IP can not be accessed by the programmer and
has only one function that is to point to the next
instruction to be fetched by the CPU
Figure 2: Pointer and index registers.

Example 1:
Referring to the next Fig 3, if SI=1000H, what is the
contents of register AH after executing the instruction
MOV AH, [SI]?
Figure 3: Memory map of Example 1

Example 1:
Referring to the next Fig 3, if SI=1000H, what is the
contents of register AH after executing the instruction
MOV AH, [SI]?
−AH = 26H
Figure 3: Memory map of Example 1

Status & Control Flags:
−It is a 16-bit register
−Six of the flags are status indicators reflecting the
properties of the result of the last arithmetic or logical
instruction.
−The 8086 has several instructions that can be used to
transfer program control based on the state of these
flags, e.g. JNZ (jump on not zero), JZ (jump on zero).
−Three of the flags can be set or reset directly by the
programmer: TF (trap flag), IF (interrupt flag), and DF
(direction flag).
Figure 4: Status and control flags.

Example 2:
If the register AL=7FH and the instruction ADD AL, 1 is
executed, what will be the content of the AL register?
What will be the values of the status flags?

Example 2:
If the register AL=7FH and the instruction ADD AL, 1 is
executed, what will be the content of the AL register?
What will be the values of the status flags?

Segment Registers:
−These registers are used by the CPU to determine the
memory segment addresses.
−The function of these registers will be explained when
discussing the memory addressing.
Figure 5: Segment registers.

Memory Space:
−The 8086 processor has 20-bit
address bus.
−This allows the processor to
address 220 or 1,048,576 different
memory locations (1 MB).

Memory Addressing:
−the memory space is divided into
segments and
−the CPU is limited to accessing
program instructions and data
only from these segments.
Figure 6: The 8086 memory space.

Memory Segments & Segment Registers:
−Within the 1MB memory space, the 8086 defines four
memory blocks each of size 64K
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Code Segment: holds the program instruction codes
Data Segment: stores data for the program
Extra Segment: holds extra data (e.g. shared data).
Stack Segment: used to store interrupt and subroutine
return addresses.
−The four segment registers (CS, DS, ES, and SS) are
used to point to the beginning of each segment (i.e.,
location 0 or the base address) as shown in Fig 7.
−The four segments need not be defined separately (i.e.
they can overlap) as shown in Fig.8.
Figure 7: The 8086 memory segments.
Figure 8: Overlapping of the 8086 memory segments.

Segments and Offsets :
−A combination of a segment address and an offset
address accesses a memory location.
−All memory addresses must consist of a segment
address plus an offset address.
−The segment address, located within one of the
segment registers, defines the beginning address of
any 64K-byte memory segment.
−The offset address selects any location within the 64K
byte memory segment.
−All memory segments have a length of 64K bytes.
Figure 9: The 8086 memory-addressing, using a segment address plus an offset.

Segments and Offsets :
−Fig 9 shows how the segment plus offset addressing
scheme selects a memory location.
 This illustration shows a memory segment that begins at
location 10000H and ends at location 1FFFFH (64K bytes
in length).
 It also shows how an offset address, sometimes called a
displacement, of F000H selects location 1F000H in the
memory system.
 Note that the offset or displacement is the distance
above the start of the segment, as shown in Fig 9.
 The segment register contains 1000H, yet it addresses a
starting segment at location 10000H.

Segments and Offsets :
−Note that Each segment registers is only 16 bits wide.
−However, the CPU must generate a 20-bit memory address to
access a location within the first 1M of memory.
−It takes care of this by appending four 0’s (0H)to the low order
bits of the segment register (multiplies the segment register
contents by 16).
−This forms a 20-bit memory address, allowing it to access the
start of a segment.
 For example, when a segment register contains 1200H, it
addresses a 64K-byte memory segment beginning at location
12000H.
 Likewise, if a segment register contains 1201H, it addresses a
memory segment beginning at location 12010H.
−Because of the internally appended 0H, memory segments can
begin only at a 16-byte boundary (called a paragraph) in the
memory system.

Segments and Offsets :
−Once the beginning address is known, the ending
address is found by adding FFFFH (64K).
−For example, if a segment register contains 3000H,
the first address of the segment is 30000H, and the
last address is or 3FFFFH.
−The following table shows several examples of
segment register contents and the starting and ending
addresses of the memory segments selected by each
segment address.

Segments and Offsets :
−The offset address, which is a part of the address, is
added to the start of the segment to address a
memory location within the memory segment.
−For example, if the segment address is 1000H and the
offset address is 2000H, the microprocessor addresses
memory location 12000H.
−The offset address is always added to the starting
address of the segment to locate the data.
−The segment and offset address is sometimes written
as 1000:2000 for a segment address of 1000H with an
offset of 2000H.

Default Segment and Offset Registers:
−The 8086 has a set of rules that apply to segments
whenever memory is addressed.
−These rules, define the segment register and offset register
combination.
−For example, the code segment register (CS) is always used
with the instruction pointer (IP) to address the next
instruction in a program.
−The code segment register defines the start of the code
segment and the instruction pointer locates the next
instruction within the code segment.
−This combination (CS:IP) locates the next instruction
executed by the CPU.
−For example, if CS=1400H and IP=1200H , the
microprocessor fetches its next instruction from memory
location or 15200H.

Default Segment and Offset Registers:
−Another default combinations is the stack.
−Stack data are referenced through the stack segment
register (SS) at the memory location addressed by either
the stack pointer (SP) or the pointer (BP).
−These combinations are referred to as SS:SP or SS:BP.
−For example, SS=2000H and BP=3000H , the CPU addresses
memory location 23000H for the stack segment memory
location.
−Other defaults of segment and offset combinations are
shown in the following table.

Logical and Physical Addresses:
−Addresses within a segment can range from address 0 to
address FFFFH.
−This corresponds to the 64K length of the segment.
−An address within a segment is called an offset, or logical,
address.
−For example, logical address 0005H in a code segment
(CS= B3FFH) actually corresponds to the real address
B3FF0H + 5 = B3FF5H.
−This "real" address is called the physical address.
−The physical address is 20 bits long and corresponds to the
actual binary code output by the CPU on the address bus
lines
−The logical address is an offset from location 0 of a given
segment.

Example 3:
Calculate the beginning and ending addresses for the data
segment, assuming register DS=E000H.

Example 3:
Calculate the beginning and ending addresses for the data
segment, assuming register DS=E000H.
−Starting Address = E0000H
−Ending Address = E0000 + 0FFFF = EFFFFH

Example 4:
Calculate the physical address corresponding to logical
address D470H in the extra segment. Repeat for logical
address 2D90H in the stack segment. Assume the segment
Definitions ES= 52B9H and SS= 5D27H.

Example 4:
Calculate the physical address corresponding to logical
address D470H in the extra segment. Repeat for logical
address 2D90H in the stack segment. Assume the segment
Definitions ES= 52B9H and SS= 5D27H.
−Calculating the Physical Address of D470H
−Physical Address = 52B90 + 0D470 = 60000H
−Calculating the Physical Address of 2D90H
−Physical Address = 5D270 + 2D90 = 60000H

The memory is organized as
two banks (Even Bank and
Odd Bank)

This allows the processor to
access one word (two
bytes) through its 16-bit
data bus.
Figure 9: The 8086 memory banks.