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ARM architecture
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ARM is a family of instruction set architectures for computer processors based on a reduced

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instruction set computing (RISC) architecture developed by British company ARM Holdings.

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ARM architectures

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A RISC-based computer design approach means ARM processors require significantly fewer

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transistors than typical CISC x86 processors in most personal computers. This approach reduces

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costs, heat and power use. These are desirable traits for light, portable, battery-powered devices

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ARM Holdings

simpler design facilitates more efficient multi-core CPUs and higher core counts at lower cost,

Bits

32-bit, 64-bit

providing improved energy efficiency for servers.[3][4][5]

Introduced

1985

Design

RISC

Type

Register-Register

Branching

Condition code

Open

Proprietary

including smartphones, laptops, tablet and notepad computers, and other embedded systems. A

ARM Holdings develops the instruction set and architecture for ARM-based products, but does not
manufacture products. The company periodically releases updates to its cores. Current cores from
ARM Holdings support a 32-bit address space and 32-bit arithmetic; the ARMv8-A architecture,
announced in October

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What links here

2011,[6]

adds support for a 64-bit address space and 64-bit arithmetic.

Instructions for ARM Holdings' cores have 32 bits wide fixed-length instructions, but later versions of

Related changes

the architecture also support a variable-length instruction set that provides both 32 and 16 bits wide

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instructions for improved code density. Some cores can also provide hardware execution of Java

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bytecodes.

Permanent link
Page information

who design their own products that implement one of those architecturesincluding systems-on-

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chips (SoC) that incorporate memory, interfaces, radios, etc. Currently, the widely used Cortex cores,
older "classic" cores, and specialized SecurCore cores variants are available for each of these to

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include or exclude optional capabilities. Companies that make chips that implement an ARM

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architecture include Apple, AppliedMicro, Atmel, Broadcom, Freescale Semiconductor, Nvidia, NXP,

Printable version

Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, ST Microelectronics and Texas Instruments. Qualcomm introduces

new three-layer 3D chip stacking in their 2014-15 ARM SoCs such as in their first 20 nm 64-bit octa-

Languages

core.[7]

()
Catal

2013[13]

over 50 billion ARM processors have been produced as of 2014, thereof 10 billion in

"ARM-based chips are found in nearly 60 percent of the worlds mobile devices". In 2008, 10 billion

Deutsch

chips had been produced.[14] The ARM architecture (32-bit) is the most widely used architecture in

Eesti

mobile devices, and most popular 32-bit one in embedded systems.[15] In 2005, about 98% of all

and

mobile phones sold used at least one ARM processor.[16] According to ARM Holdings, in 2010 alone,
producers of chips based on ARM architectures reported shipments of 6.1 billion ARM-based

processors, representing 95% of smartphones, 35% of digital televisions and set-top boxes and 10%

Franais

ARMv8-A

Encoding

AArch64/A64 and AArch32/A32

use 32-bit instructions, T32
(Thumb-2) uses mixed 16- and
32-bit instructions. ARMv7 userspace compatibility[1]

Endianness Bi (little as default)

Extensions All mandatory: Thumb-2, NEON,
Jazelle, VFPv4-D16, VFPv4
Registers
General

31x 64-bit integer registers[1] plus

purpose

PC and SP, ELR, SPSR for

exception levels

produced.[8][9][10][11][12] The low power consumption of ARM processors has made them very popular:

Dansk

Espaol

Version

Globally ARM is the most widely used instruction set architecture in terms of quantity

etina

64/32-bit architecture
Introduced 2011

ARM Holdings licenses the chip designs and the ARM instruction set architectures to third parties,

Wikidata item

Print/export

The ARM logo

Designer

Floating
point

32 128-bit registers[1] for scalar

32- and 64-bit FP or SIMD FP or
integer; or cryptography

32-bit architectures (Cortex)

Version

ARMv8-R, ARMv7-A, ARMv7-R,

ARMv7E-M, ARMv7-M, ARMv6-M

Encoding

32-bit except Thumb-2 extensions

use mixed 16- and 32-bit
instructions.

of mobile computers.
Bahasa Indonesia

Endianness Bi (little as default)

Italiano

Extensions Thumb-2 (mandatory since

ARMv7), NEON, Jazelle, FPv4-SP

Registers

Latvieu
Magyar

General
purpose

16x 32-bit integer registers

including PC and SP

Nederlands

Floating
point

Up to 32 64-bit registers,[2]

Norsk bokml
Polski
Portugus

32-bit architectures (legacy)

Version

ARMv6, ARMv5, ARMv4T,

ARMv3, ARMv2

Encoding

32-bit except Thumb extension

uses mixed 16- and 32-bit
instructions.

Shqip
Simple English
Slovenina
/ srpski
Srpskohrvatski /

Suomi

SIMD/floating-point (optional)

Endianness Bi (little as default) in ARMv3 and

above
Extensions Thumb, Jazelle
Registers

Svenska
Trke

General
purpose

Ting Vit
Edit links

16x 32-bit integer registers

including PC (26-bit addressing in
older) and SP

Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Acorn RISC Machine: ARM2
1.2 Apple, DEC, Intel, Marvell: ARM6, StrongARM, XScale
2 Licensing
2.1 Core licence
2.2 Architectural licence
3 Cores
3.1 Example applications of ARM cores
4 32-bit architecture
4.1 CPU modes
4.2 Instruction set
4.2.1 Arithmetic instructions
4.2.2 Registers
4.2.3 Conditional execution
4.2.4 Other features
4.2.5 Pipelines and other implementation issues
4.2.6 Coprocessors
4.3 Debugging
4.4 DSP enhancement instructions
4.5 SIMD extensions for multimedia
4.6 Jazelle
4.7 Thumb
4.8 Thumb-2
4.9 Thumb Execution Environment (ThumbEE)
4.10 Floating-point (VFP)
4.11 Advanced SIMD (NEON)
4.12 Security extensions (TrustZone)
4.13 No-execute page protection
4.14 ARMv8-R
5 64/32-bit architecture
5.1 ARMv8-A
5.1.1 AArch64 features
6 Operating system support
6.1 32-bit operating systems
6.2 64-bit operating systems
7 See also
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links

History

[edit]

The British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers first developed ARM in the 1980s to use
in its personal computers. Its first ARM-based products were coprocessor modules for the
BBC Micro series of computers. After the successful BBC Micro computer, Acorn Computers
considered how to move on from the relatively simple MOS Technology 6502 processor to
address business markets like the one that was soon dominated by the IBM PC, launched in
1981. The Acorn Business Computer (ABC) plan required that a number of second processors
be made to work with the BBC Micro platform, but processors such as the Motorola 68000 and
National Semiconductor 32016 were considered unsuitable, and the 6502 was not powerful
enough for a graphics based user interface.[17]
After testing all available processors and finding them lacking, Acorn decided it needed a new
architecture. Inspired by white papers on the Berkeley RISC project, Acorn considered
designing its own processor.[18] A visit to the Western Design Center in Phoenix, where the
6502 was being updated by what was effectively a single-person company, showed Acorn
engineers Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson they did not need massive resources and state-ofthe-art research and development facilities.[19]
Wilson developed the instruction set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC BASIC that
ran on a BBC Micro with a second 6502 processor. This convinced Acorn engineers they were

Microprocessor-based system on a chip

on the right track. Wilson approached Acorn's CEO, Hermann Hauser, and requested more
resources. Once he had approval, he assembled a small team to implement Wilson's model in
hardware.

Acorn RISC Machine: ARM2 [edit]

The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983. They chose VLSI Technology as the
silicon partner, as they were a source of ROMs and custom chips for Acorn. Wilson and Furber led the
design. They implemented it with a similar efficiency ethos as the 6502.[20] A key design goal was achieving
low-latency input/output (interrupt) handling like the 6502. The 6502's memory access architecture had let
developers produce fast machines without costly direct memory access hardware.

The ARM1 second processor for the

BBC Micro

VLSI produced the first ARM silicon on 26 April 1985. It worked the first time, and was known as ARM1 by
April 1985.[3] The first production systems named ARM2 were available the following year.
The first ARM application was as a second processor for the BBC Micro, where it helped in developing simulation software to finish development of
the support chips (VIDC, IOC, MEMC), and sped up the CAD software used in ARM2 development. Wilson subsequently rewrote BBC BASIC in

ARM assembly language. The in-depth knowledge gained from designing the instruction set enabled the code to be very dense, making ARM BBC
BASIC an extremely good test for any ARM emulator. The original aim of a principally ARM-based computer was achieved in 1987 with the release
of the Acorn Archimedes.[21] In 1992, Acorn once more won the Queen's Award for Technology for the ARM.
The ARM2 featured a 32-bit data bus, 26-bit address space and 27 32-bit registers. Eight bits from the program counter register were available for
other purposes; the top six bits (available because of the 26-bit address space), served as status flags, and the bottom two bits (available because
the program counter was always word-aligned), were used for setting modes. The address bus was extended to 32 bits in the ARM6, but program
code still had to lie within the first 64 MB of memory in 26-bit compatibility mode, due to the reserved bits for the status flags.[22] The ARM2 had a
transistor count of just 30,000, compared to Motorola's six-year-older 68000 model with around 40,000.[23] Much of this simplicity came from the
lack of microcode (which represents about one-quarter to one-third of the 68000) and from (like most CPUs of the day) not including any cache.
This simplicity enabled low power consumption, yet better performance than the Intel 80286. A successor, ARM3, was produced with a 4 KB
cache, which further improved performance.[24]

Apple, DEC, Intel, Marvell: ARM6, StrongARM, XScale [edit]

In the late 1980s Apple Computer and VLSI Technology started working with Acorn on newer versions of
the ARM core. In 1990, Acorn spun off the design team into a new company named Acorn RISC Machines
Ltd., which became ARM Ltd when its parent company, ARM Holdings plc, floated on the London Stock
Exchange and NASDAQ in 1998.[25]
The new Apple-ARM work would eventually evolve into the ARM6, first released in early 1992. Apple used
the ARM6-based ARM610 as the basis for their Apple Newton PDA. In 1994, Acorn used the ARM610 as
the main central processing unit (CPU) in their RiscPC computers. DEC licensed the ARM6 architecture
and produced the StrongARM. At 233 MHz, this CPU drew only one watt (newer versions draw far less).
This work was later passed to Intel as a part of a lawsuit settlement, and Intel took the opportunity to
supplement their i960 line with the StrongARM. Intel later developed its own high performance
implementation named XScale, which it has since sold to Marvell. Transistor count of the ARM core

Die of an ARM610 microprocessor.

remained essentially the same size throughout these changes; ARM2 had 30,000 transistors, while ARM6
grew only to 35,000.[citation needed]

Licensing

[edit]

See also: ARM Holdings Licensees

Core licence [edit]

ARM Holdings' primary business is selling IP cores, which licensees use to create microcontrollers (MCUs)
and CPUs based on those cores. The original design manufacturer combines the ARM core with other
parts to produce a complete CPU, typically one that can be built in existing semiconductor fabs at low cost
and still deliver substantial performance. The most successful implementation has been the ARM7TDMI
with hundreds of millions sold. Atmel has been a precursor design center in the ARM7TDMI-based
embedded system.
The ARM architectures used in smartphones, PDAs and other mobile devices range from ARMv5, used in
low-end devices, through ARMv6, to ARMv7 in current high-end devices. ARMv7 includes a hardware
floating-point unit (FPU), with improved speed compared to software-based floating-point.
In 2009, some manufacturers introduced netbooks based on ARM architecture CPUs, in direct competition
with netbooks based on Intel Atom.[26] According to analyst firm IHS iSuppli, by 2015, ARM ICs may be in

Die of a STM32F103VGT6 ARM

Cortex-M3 microcontroller with
1 megabyte flash memory by
STMicroelectronics.

23% of all laptops.[27]

ARM Holdings offers a variety of licensing terms, varying in cost and deliverables. ARM Holdings provides to all licensees an integratable hardware
description of the ARM core as well as complete software development toolset (compiler, debugger, software development kit) and the right to sell
manufactured silicon containing the ARM CPU.
SoC packages integrating ARM's core designs include Nvidia Tegra's first three generations, CSR plc's Quatro family, ST-Ericsson's Nova and
NovaThor, Silicon Labs's Precision32 MCU, Texas Instruments's OMAP products, Samsung's Hummingbird and Exynos products, Apple's A4, A5,
and A5X, and Freescale's i.MX.
Fabless licensees, who wish to integrate an ARM core into their own chip design, are usually only interested in acquiring a ready-to-manufacture
verified IP core. For these customers, ARM Holdings delivers a gate netlist description of the chosen ARM core, along with an abstracted
simulation model and test programs to aid design integration and verification. More ambitious customers, including integrated device
manufacturers (IDM) and foundry operators, choose to acquire the processor IP in synthesizable RTL (Verilog) form. With the synthesizable RTL,
the customer has the ability to perform architectural level optimisations and extensions. This allows the designer to achieve exotic design goals not
otherwise possible with an unmodified netlist (high clock speed, very low power consumption, instruction set extensions, etc.). While ARM Holdings
does not grant the licensee the right to resell the ARM architecture itself, licensees may freely sell manufactured product such as chip devices,
evaluation boards and complete systems. Merchant foundries can be a special case; not only are they allowed to sell finished silicon containing
ARM cores, they generally hold the right to re-manufacture ARM cores for other customers.
ARM Holdings prices its IP based on perceived value. Lower performing ARM cores typically have lower licence costs than higher performing
cores. In implementation terms, a synthesizable core costs more than a hard macro (blackbox) core. Complicating price matters, a merchant
foundry that holds an ARM licence, such as Samsung or Fujitsu, can offer fab customers reduced licensing costs. In exchange for acquiring the
ARM core through the foundry's in-house design services, the customer can reduce or eliminate payment of ARM's upfront licence fee.
Compared to dedicated semiconductor foundries (such as TSMC and UMC) without in-house design services, Fujitsu/Samsung charge two- to
three-times more per manufactured wafer.[citation needed] For low to mid volume applications, a design service foundry offers lower overall pricing
(through subsidisation of the licence fee). For high volume mass-produced parts, the long term cost reduction achievable through lower wafer
pricing reduces the impact of ARM's NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs, making the dedicated foundry a better choice.

Architectural licence [edit]

Companies can also obtain an ARM architectural licence for designing their own CPU cores using the ARM instruction sets. These cores must
comply fully with the ARM architecture.

Cores

[edit]

Main article: List of ARM cores

Architecture

Bit

Cores designed by ARM Holdings

width

ARMv1

32/26 ARM1

ARMv2

32/26 ARM2, ARM3

Cores designed by third parties

Cortex profile References

Amber, STORM Open Soft Core[28]

ARMv3

32

ARM6, ARM7

ARMv4

32

ARM8

ARMv4T

32

ARM7TDMI, ARM9TDMI

ARMv5

32

ARM7EJ, ARM9E, ARM10E

ARMv6

32

ARM11

ARMv6-M

32

ARMv7-M

32

ARM Cortex-M3

Microcontroller

ARMv7E-M

32

ARM Cortex-M4

Microcontroller

ARMv7-R

32

ARMv7-A

32

StrongARM, FA526

XScale, FA626TE, Feroceon, PJ1/Mohawk

ARM Cortex-M0, ARM Cortex-M0+, ARM

Microcontroller

Cortex-M1

ARM Cortex-R4, ARM Cortex-R5, ARM

Real-time

Cortex-R7
ARM Cortex-A5, ARM Cortex-A7, ARM
Cortex-A8, ARM Cortex-A9, ARM Cortex-

Krait, Scorpion, PJ4/Sheeva, Apple A6/A6X (Swift)

Application

A12, ARM Cortex-A15, ARM Cortex-A17

ARMv8-A
ARMv8-R

64/32 ARM Cortex-A53, ARM Cortex-A57[29]

32

X-Gene, Denver, Apple A7 (Cyclone), AMD K12,

Apple A8

No announcements yet

Application

[30][31]

Real-time

[32][33]

A list of vendors who implement ARM cores in their design (application specific standard products (ASSP), microprocessor and microcontrollers) is
provided by ARM Holdings.[34]

Example applications of ARM cores [edit]

Main article: List of applications of ARM cores
ARM cores are used in a number of products, particularly PDAs and smartphones. Some computing
examples are the Microsoft Surface, Apple's iPad and ASUS Eee Pad Transformer. Others include Apple's
iPhone smartphone and iPod portable media player, Canon PowerShot A470 digital camera, Nintendo DS
handheld game console and TomTom turn-by-turn navigation system.
In 2005, ARM Holdings took part in the development of Manchester University's computer, SpiNNaker,
which used ARM cores to simulate the human brain.[35]
ARM chips are also used in Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoard, BeagleBone, PandaBoard and other single-board
computers, because they are very small, inexpensive and consume very little power.

32-bit architecture

[edit]

The 32-bit ARM architecture, such as ARMv7-A, is the most widely used architecture in mobile devices.[15]
From 1995, the ARM Architecture Reference Manual

Tronsmart MK908, a Rockchipbased quad-core Android "mini PC",

with a microSD card next to it for a size
comparison.

has been the primary source of documentation on the ARM processor architecture and

instruction set, distinguishing interfaces that all ARM processors are required to support (such as instruction semantics) from implementation
details that may vary. The architecture has evolved over time, and version seven of the architecture, ARMv7, that defines the architecture for the
first of the Cortex series of cores, defines three architecture "profiles":
A-profile, the "Application" profile: Cortex-A series
R-profile, the "Real-time" profile: Cortex-R series
M-profile, the "Microcontroller" profile: Cortex-M series
Although the architecture profiles were first defined for ARMv7, ARM subsequently defined the ARMv6-M architecture (used by the Cortex
M0/M0+/M1) as a subset of the ARMv7-M profile with fewer instructions.

CPU modes [edit]

Except in the M-profile, the 32-bit ARM architecture specifies several CPU modes, depending on the implemented architecture features. At any
moment in time, the CPU can be in only one mode, but it can switch modes due to external events (interrupts) or programmatically.[36]
User mode: The only non-privileged mode.
FIQ mode: A privileged mode that is entered whenever the processor accepts an FIQ interrupt.
IRQ mode: A privileged mode that is entered whenever the processor accepts an IRQ interrupt.
Supervisor (svc) mode: A privileged mode entered whenever the CPU is reset or when an SVC instruction is executed.
Abort mode: A privileged mode that is entered whenever a prefetch abort or data abort exception occurs.
Undefined mode: A privileged mode that is entered whenever an undefined instruction exception occurs.
System mode (ARMv4 and above): The only privileged mode that is not entered by an exception. It can only be entered by executing an
instruction that explicitly writes to the mode bits of the CPSR.
Monitor mode (ARMv6 and ARMv7 Security Extensions, ARMv8 EL3): A monitor mode is introduced to support TrustZone extension in ARM
cores.
Hyp mode (ARMv7 Virtualization Extensions, ARMv8 EL2): A hypervisor mode that supports Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements
for the non-secure operation of the CPU.[37][38]

Instruction set [edit]

The original (and subsequent) ARM implementation was hardwired without microcode, like the much simpler 8-bit 6502 processor used in prior
Acorn microcomputers.
The 32-bit ARM architecture (and the 64-bit architecture for the most part) includes the following RISC features:
Load/store architecture.
No support for unaligned memory accesses in the original version of the architecture. ARMv6 and later, except some microcontroller versions,
support unaligned accesses for half-word and single-word load/store instructions with some limitations, such as no guaranteed atomicity.[39][40]
Uniform 16 32-bit register file (including the Program Counter, Stack Pointer and the Link Register).
Fixed instruction width of 32 bits to ease decoding and pipelining, at the cost of decreased code density. Later, the Thumb instruction set
added 16-bit instructions and increased code density.
Mostly single clock-cycle execution.
To compensate for the simpler design, compared with processors like the Intel 80286 and Motorola 68020, some additional design features were
used:
Conditional execution of most instructions reduces branch overhead and compensates for the lack of a branch predictor.
Arithmetic instructions alter condition codes only when desired.
32-bit barrel shifter can be used without performance penalty with most arithmetic instructions and address calculations.
Has powerful indexed addressing modes.
A link register supports fast leaf function calls.
A simple, but fast, 2-priority-level interrupt subsystem has switched register banks.
Arithmetic instructions [edit]
The ARM supports add, subtract, and multiply instructions. The integer divide instructions are only implemented by ARM cores based on the
following ARM architectures:
ARMv7-M and ARMv7E-M architectures always include divide instructions.[41]
ARMv7-R architecture always includes divide instructions in the Thumb instruction set, but optionally in its 32-bit instruction set.[42]
ARMv7-A architecture optionally includes the divide instructions. The instructions might not be implemented, or implemented only in the Thumb
instruction set, or implemented in both the Thumb and ARM instructions sets, or implemented if the Virtualization Extensions are included.[42]
Registers [edit]
Registers R0 through R7 are the same across all CPU modes; they are never
banked.

Registers across CPU modes

usr sys

svc

abt

und

R13 and R14 are banked across all privileged CPU modes except system

R0

mode. That is, each mode that can be entered because of an exception has its

R1

own R13 and R14. These registers generally contain the stack pointer and the

R2

return address from function calls, respectively.

irq

fiq

R3

Aliases:

R4

R13 is also referred to as SP, the Stack Pointer.

R5

R14 is also referred to as LR, the Link Register.

R6

R15 is also referred to as PC, the Program Counter.

R7

CPSR has the following 32 bits.[43]

R8

M (bits 04) is the processor mode bits.

R8_fiq

R9

R9_fiq

R10

R10_fiq

I (bit 7) is the IRQ disable bit.

R11

R11_fiq

A (bit 8) is the imprecise data abort disable bit.

R12

R12_fiq

T (bit 5) is the Thumb state bit.

F (bit 6) is the FIQ disable bit.

E (bit 9) is the data endianness bit.

R13

R13_svc

R13_abt

R13_und

R13_irq

R13_fiq

IT (bits 1015 and 2526) is the if-then state bits.

R14

R14_svc

R14_abt

R14_und

R14_irq

R14_fiq

GE (bits 1619) is the greater-than-or-equal-to bits.

R15

DNM (bits 2023) is the do not modify bits.

CPSR

J (bit 24) is the Java state bit.

Q (bit 27) is the sticky overflow bit.

SPSR_svc SPSR_abt SPSR_und SPSR_irq SPSR_fiq

V (bit 28) is the overflow bit.

C (bit 29) is the carry/borrow/extend bit.
Z (bit 30) is the zero bit.
N (bit 31) is the negative/less than bit.
Conditional execution [edit]
Almost every ARM instruction has a conditional execution feature called predication, which is implemented with a 4-bit condition code selector (the
predicate). To allow for unconditional execution, one of the four-bit codes causes the instruction to be always executed. Most other CPU
architectures only have condition codes on branch instructions.
Though the predicate takes up four of the 32 bits in an instruction code, and thus cuts down significantly on the encoding bits available for
displacements in memory access instructions, it avoids branch instructions when generating code for small if statements. Apart from eliminating
the branch instructions themselves, this preserves the fetch/decode/execute pipeline at the cost of only one cycle per skipped instruction.
The standard example of conditional execution is the subtraction-based Euclidean algorithm:
In the C programming language, the loop is:
while (i != j)
{
if (i > j)
{
i -= j;
}

else /* i < j (since i != j in while condition) */

{
j -= i;
}

In ARM assembly, the loop is:

loop: CMP Ri, Rj
; set condition "NE" if (i != j),
;
"GT" if (i > j),
;
or "LT" if (i < j)
SUBGT Ri, Ri, Rj ; if "GT" (Greater Than), i = i-j;
SUBLT Rj, Rj, Ri ; if "LT" (Less Than), j = j-i;
BNE loop
; if "NE" (Not Equal), then loop
which avoids the branches around the then and else clauses. If Ri and Rj are equal then neither of the SUB instructions will be executed,
eliminating the need for a conditional branch to implement the while check at the top of the loop, for example had SUBLE (less than or equal)
been used.
One of the ways that Thumb code provides a more dense encoding is to remove the four bit selector from non-branch instructions.
Other features [edit]
Another feature of the instruction set is the ability to fold shifts and rotates into the "data processing" (arithmetic, logical, and register-register
move) instructions, so that, for example, the C statement
a += (j << 2);
could be rendered as a single-word, single-cycle instruction:[44]
ADD Ra, Ra, Rj, LSL #2
This results in the typical ARM program being denser than expected with fewer memory accesses; thus the pipeline is used more efficiently.
The ARM processor also has features rarely seen in other RISC architectures, such as PC-relative addressing (indeed, on the 32-bit[1] ARM the
PC is one of its 16 registers) and pre- and post-increment addressing modes.
The ARM instruction set has increased over time. Some early ARM processors (before ARM7TDMI), for example, have no instruction to store a
two-byte quantity.
Pipelines and other implementation issues [edit]
The ARM7 and earlier implementations have a three-stage pipeline; the stages being fetch, decode and execute. Higher-performance designs,
such as the ARM9, have deeper pipelines: Cortex-A8 has thirteen stages. Additional implementation changes for higher performance include a
faster adder and more extensive branch prediction logic. The difference between the ARM7DI and ARM7DMI cores, for example, was an improved
multiplier; hence the added "M".
Coprocessors [edit]
The ARM architecture (pre-ARMv8) provides a non-intrusive way of extending the instruction set using "coprocessors" that can be addressed
using MCR, MRC, MRRC, MCRR, and similar instructions. The coprocessor space is divided logically into 16 coprocessors with numbers from 0 to
15, coprocessor 15 (cp15) being reserved for some typical control functions like managing the caches and MMU operation on processors that
have one.
In ARM-based machines, peripheral devices are usually attached to the processor by mapping their physical registers into ARM memory space,
into the coprocessor space, or by connecting to another device (a bus) that in turn attaches to the processor. Coprocessor accesses have lower
latency, so some peripheralsfor example an XScale interrupt controllerare accessible in both ways: through memory and through
coprocessors.
In other cases, chip designers only integrate hardware using the coprocessor mechanism. For example, an image processing engine might be a
small ARM7TDMI core combined with a coprocessor that has specialised operations to support a specific set of HDTV transcoding primitives.

Debugging [edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding
citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011)
All modern ARM processors include hardware debugging facilities, allowing software debuggers to perform operations such as halting, stepping,
and breakpointing of code starting from reset. These facilities are built using JTAG support, though some newer cores optionally support ARM's
own two-wire "SWD" protocol. In ARM7TDMI cores, the "D" represented JTAG debug support, and the "I" represented presence of an
"EmbeddedICE" debug module. For ARM7 and ARM9 core generations, EmbeddedICE over JTAG was a de facto debug standard, though not
architecturally guaranteed.
The ARMv7 architecture defines basic debug facilities at an architectural level. These include breakpoints, watchpoints and instruction execution in
a "Debug Mode"; similar facilities were also available with EmbeddedICE. Both "halt mode" and "monitor" mode debugging are supported. The
actual transport mechanism used to access the debug facilities is not architecturally specified, but implementations generally include JTAG
support.
There is a separate ARM "CoreSight" debug architecture, which is not architecturally required by ARMv7 processors.

DSP enhancement instructions [edit]

To improve the ARM architecture for digital signal processing and multimedia applications, DSP instructions were added to the set.[45] These are
signified by an "E" in the name of the ARMv5TE and ARMv5TEJ architectures. E-variants also imply T, D, M and I.
The new instructions are common in digital signal processor architectures. They include variations on signed multiplyaccumulate, saturated add
and subtract, and count leading zeros.

SIMD extensions for multimedia [edit]

Introduced in ARMv6 architecture.[46]

Jazelle [edit]
Main article: Jazelle
Jazelle DBX (Direct Bytecode eXecution) is a technique that allows Java Bytecode to be executed directly in the ARM architecture as a third
execution state (and instruction set) alongside the existing ARM and Thumb-mode. Support for this state is signified by the "J" in the ARMv5TEJ
architecture, and in ARM9EJ-S and ARM7EJ-S core names. Support for this state is required starting in ARMv6 (except for the ARMv7-M profile),
though newer cores only include a trivial implementation that provides no hardware acceleration.

Thumb [edit]
To improve compiled code-density, processors since the ARM7TDMI (released in 1994[47]) have featured Thumb instruction set, which have their
own state. (The "T" in "TDMI" indicates the Thumb feature.) When in this state, the processor executes the Thumb instruction set, a compact 16bit encoding for a subset of the ARM instruction set.[48] Most of the Thumb instructions are directly mapped to normal ARM instructions. The
space-saving comes from making some of the instruction operands implicit and limiting the number of possibilities compared to the ARM
instructions executed in the ARM instruction set state.
In Thumb, the 16-bit opcodes have less functionality. For example, only branches can be conditional, and many opcodes are restricted to
accessing only half of all of the CPU's general-purpose registers. The shorter opcodes give improved code density overall, even though some
operations require extra instructions. In situations where the memory port or bus width is constrained to less than 32 bits, the shorter Thumb
opcodes allow increased performance compared with 32-bit ARM code, as less program code may need to be loaded into the processor over the
constrained memory bandwidth.
Embedded hardware, such as the Game Boy Advance, typically have a small amount of RAM accessible with a full 32-bit datapath; the majority is
accessed via a 16-bit or narrower secondary datapath. In this situation, it usually makes sense to compile Thumb code and hand-optimise a few of
the most CPU-intensive sections using full 32-bit ARM instructions, placing these wider instructions into the 32-bit bus accessible memory.
The first processor with a Thumb instruction decoder was the ARM7TDMI. All ARM9 and later families, including XScale, have included a Thumb
instruction decoder.

Thumb-2 [edit]
Thumb-2 technology was introduced in the ARM1156 core, announced in 2003. Thumb-2 extends the limited 16-bit instruction set of Thumb with
additional 32-bit instructions to give the instruction set more breadth, thus producing a variable-length instruction set. A stated aim for Thumb-2
was to achieve code density similar to Thumb with performance similar to the ARM instruction set on 32-bit memory. In ARMv7 this goal can be
said to have been met.[citation needed]
Thumb-2 extends the Thumb instruction set with bit-field manipulation, table branches and conditional execution. At the same time, the ARM
instruction set was extended to maintain equivalent functionality in both instruction sets. A new "Unified Assembly Language" (UAL) supports
generation of either Thumb or ARM instructions from the same source code; versions of Thumb seen on ARMv7 processors are essentially as
capable as ARM code (including the ability to write interrupt handlers). This requires a bit of care, and use of a new "IT" (if-then) instruction, which
permits up to four successive instructions to execute based on a tested condition, or on its inverse. When compiling into ARM code this is ignored,
but when compiling into Thumb it generates an actual instruction. For example:
; if (r0 == r1)
CMP r0, r1
ITE EQ
; ARM: no code ... Thumb: IT instruction
; then r0 = r2;
MOVEQ r0, r2 ; ARM: conditional; Thumb: condition via ITE 'T' (then)
; else r0 = r3;
MOVNE r0, r3 ; ARM: conditional; Thumb: condition via ITE 'E' (else)
; recall that the Thumb MOV instruction has no bits to encode "EQ" or "NE"
All ARMv7 chips support the Thumb instruction set. All chips in the Cortex-A series, Cortex-R series, and ARM11 series support both "ARM
instruction set state" and "Thumb instruction set state", while chips in the Cortex-M series support only the Thumb instruction set.[49][50][51]

Thumb Execution Environment (ThumbEE) [edit]

ThumbEE (erroneously called Thumb-2EE in some ARM documentation), marketed as Jazelle RCT

(Runtime Compilation Target), was

announced in 2005, first appearing in the Cortex-A8 processor. ThumbEE is a fourth Instruction set state, making small changes to the Thumb-2
extended Thumb instruction set. These changes make the instruction set particularly suited to code generated at runtime (e.g. by JIT compilation)
in managed Execution Environments. ThumbEE is a target for languages such as Java, C#, Perl, and Python, and allows JIT compilers to output
smaller compiled code without impacting performance.
New features provided by ThumbEE include automatic null pointer checks on every load and store instruction, an instruction to perform an array
bounds check, and special instructions that call a handler. In addition, because it utilises Thumb-2 technology, ThumbEE provides access to
registers r8-r15 (where the Jazelle/DBX Java VM state is held).[52] Handlers are small sections of frequently called code, commonly used to
implement high level languages, such as allocating memory for a new object. These changes come from repurposing a handful of opcodes, and
knowing the core is in the new ThumbEE Instruction set state.
On 23 November 2011, ARM Holdings deprecated any use of the ThumbEE instruction set,[53] and ARMv8 removes support for ThumbEE.

Floating-point (VFP) [edit]

VFP (Vector Floating Point) technology is an FPU (Floating-Point Unit) coprocessor extension to the ARM architecture[54] (implemented differently
in ARMv8 - coprocessors not defined there). It provides low-cost single-precision and double-precision floating-point computation fully compliant
with the ANSI/IEEE Std 754-1985 Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic. VFP provides floating-point computation suitable for a wide
spectrum of applications such as PDAs, smartphones, voice compression and decompression, three-dimensional graphics and digital audio,
printers, set-top boxes, and automotive applications. The VFP architecture was intended to support execution of short "vector mode" instructions
but these operated on each vector element sequentially and thus did not offer the performance of true single instruction, multiple data (SIMD)
vector parallelism. This vector mode was therefore removed shortly after its introduction,[55] to be replaced with the much more powerful NEON
Advanced SIMD unit.

Some devices such as the ARM Cortex-A8 have a cut-down VFPLite module instead of a full VFP module, and require roughly ten times more
clock cycles per float operation.[56] Pre-ARMv8 architecture implemented floating-point/SIMD with the coprocessor interface. Other floating-point
and/or SIMD units found in ARM-based processors using the coprocessor interface include FPA, FPE, iwMMXt, some of which where implemented
in software by trapping but could have been implemented in hardware. They provide some of the same functionality as VFP but are not opcodecompatible with it.
VFPv1
Obsolete
VFPv2
An optional extension to the ARM instruction set in the ARMv5TE, ARMv5TEJ and ARMv6 architectures. VFPv2 has 16 64-bit FPU registers.
VFPv3 or VFPv3-D32
Implemented on the Cortex-A8 and A9 ARMv7 processors. It is backwards compatible with VFPv2, except that it cannot trap floating-point
exceptions. VFPv3 has 32 64-bit FPU registers as standard, adds VCVT instructions to convert between scalar, float and double, adds
immediate mode to VMOV such that constants can be loaded into FPU registers.
VFPv3-D16
As above, but with only 16 64-bit FPU registers. Implemented on Cortex-R4 and R5 processors.
VFPv3-F16
Uncommon; it supports IEEE754-2008 half-precision (16-bit) floating point.
VFPv4 or VFPv4-D32
Implemented on the Cortex-A12 and A15 ARMv7 processors, Cortex-A7 optionally has VFPv4-D32 in the case of an FPU with NEON.[57]
VFPv4 has 32 64-bit FPU registers as standard, adds both half-precision extensions and fused multiply-accumulate instructions to the features
of VFPv3.
VFPv4-D16
As above, but it has only 16 64-bit FPU registers. Implemented on Cortex-A5 and A7 processors (in case of an FPU without NEON[57]).
In Debian Linux and derivatives armhf (ARM hard float) refers to the ARMv7 architecture including the additional VFP3-D16 floating-point
hardware extension (and Thumb-2) above.
Software packages and cross-compiler tools use the armhf vs. arm/armel suffixes to differentiate.[58]

Advanced SIMD (NEON) [edit]

The Advanced SIMD extension (aka NEON or "MPE" Media Processing Engine) is a combined 64- and 128-bit SIMD instruction set that provides
standardized acceleration for media and signal processing applications. NEON is included in all Cortex-A8 devices but is optional in Cortex-A9
devices.[59] NEON can execute MP3 audio decoding on CPUs running at 10 MHz and can run the GSM adaptive multi-rate (AMR) speech codec at
no more than 13 MHz. It features a comprehensive instruction set, separate register files and independent execution hardware.[60] NEON supports
8-, 16-, 32- and 64-bit integer and single-precision (32-bit) floating-point data and SIMD operations for handling audio and video processing as
well as graphics and gaming processing. In NEON, the SIMD supports up to 16 operations at the same time. The NEON hardware shares the
same floating-point registers as used in VFP. Devices such as the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 support 128-bit vectors but will execute with
64 bits at a time,[56] whereas newer Cortex-A15 devices can execute 128 bits at a time.
ProjectNe10

is ARM's first open source project (from its inception). The Ne10 library is a set of common, useful functions written in both NEON

and C (for compatibility). The library was created to allow developers to use NEON optimizations without learning NEON but it also serves as a set
of highly optimized NEON intrinsic and assembly code examples for common DSP, arithmetic and image processing routines. The code is
available on GitHub .

Security extensions (TrustZone) [edit]

The Security Extensions, marketed as TrustZone Technology, is in ARMv6KZ and later application profile architectures. It provides a low-cost
alternative to adding another dedicated security core to an SoC, by providing two virtual processors backed by hardware based access control.
This lets the application core switch between two states, referred to as worlds (to reduce confusion with other names for capability domains), in
order to prevent information from leaking from the more trusted world to the less trusted world. This world switch is generally orthogonal to all
other capabilities of the processor, thus each world can operate independently of the other while using the same core. Memory and peripherals
are then made aware of the operating world of the core and may use this to provide access control to secrets and code on the device.[61]
Typical applications of TrustZone Technology are to run a rich operating system in the less trusted world, and smaller security-specialized code in
the more trusted world (named TrustZone Software, a TrustZone optimised version of the Trusted Foundations Software developed by Trusted
Logic Mobility ), allowing much tighter digital rights management for controlling the use of media on ARM-based devices,[62] and preventing any
unapproved use of the device. Trusted Foundations Software was acquired by Gemalto. Giesecke & Devrient developed a rival implementation
named Mobicore. In April 2012 ARM Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient combined their TrustZone portfolios into a joint venture Trustonic.[63][64]
Open Virtualization[65] and T6[66] are open source implementations of the trusted world architecture for TrustZone.
In practice, since the specific implementation details of TrustZone are proprietary and have not been publicly disclosed for review, it is unclear
what level of assurance is provided for a given threat model.[citation needed]

No-execute page protection [edit]

As of ARMv6, the ARM architecture supports no-execute page protection, which is referred to as XN, for eXecute Never.[67]

ARMv8-R [edit]
The ARMv8-R sub-architecture, announced after the ARMv8-A, shares some features except that it is not 64-bit.

64/32-bit architecture

[edit]

ARMv8-A [edit]
Announced in October 2011,[6] ARMv8-A (often called ARMv8 although not all variants are 64-bit such as ARMv8-R) represents a fundamental
change to the ARM architecture. It adds a 64-bit architecture, named "AArch64", and a new "A64" instruction set. AArch64 provides user-space
compatibility with ARMv7-A ISA, the 32-bit architecture, therein referred to as "AArch32" and the old 32-bit instruction set, now named "A32". The
Thumb instruction sets are referred to as "T32" and have no 64-bit counterpart. ARMv8-A allows 32-bit applications to be executed in a 64-bit OS,
and a 32-bit OS to be under the control of a 64-bit hypervisor.[1] ARM announced their Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 cores on 30 October 2012.[29]

Apple was the first to release an ARMv8-A compatible core (Apple A7) in a consumer product (iPhone 5S). AppliedMicro, using an FPGA, was the
first to demo ARMv8-A.[68] The first ARMv8-A SoC from Samsung is the Exynos 5433 in the Galaxy Note 4, which features two clusters of four
Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration; but it will run only in AArch32 mode.[69]
To both AArch32 and AArch64, ARMv8-A makes VFPv3/v4 and advanced SIMD (NEON) standard. It also adds cryptography instructions
supporting AES and SHA-1/SHA-256.
AArch64 features [edit]
New instruction set, A64
Has 31 general-purpose 64-bit registers.
Has dedicated SP or zero register.
The program counter (PC) is no longer accessible as a register
Instructions are still 32 bits long and mostly the same as A32 (with LDM/STM instructions and most conditional execution dropped).
Has paired loads/stores (in place of LDM/STM).
No predication for most instructions (except branches).
Most instructions can take 32-bit or 64-bit arguments.
Addresses assumed to be 64-bit.
Advanced SIMD (NEON) enhanced
Has 32 128-bit registers (up from 16), also accessible via VFPv4.
Supports double-precision floating point.
Fully IEEE 754 compliant.
AES encrypt/decrypt and SHA-1/SHA-2 hashing instructions also use these registers.
A new exception system
Fewer banked registers and modes.
Memory translation from 48-bit virtual addresses based on the existing Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE), which was designed to be
easily extended to 64-bit.

Operating system support

[edit]

32-bit operating systems [edit]

Historical operating systems
The first ARM-based personal computer, the Acorn Archimedes, ran an interim operating system called Arthur,
which evolved into RISC OS, used on later ARM-based systems from Acorn and other vendors. Some Acorn
machines also had a Unix port called RISC iX.
Embedded operating systems
The ARM architecture is supported by a large number of embedded and real-time operating systems, including
Linux, Windows CE, Symbian, ChibiOS/RT, FreeRTOS, eCos, Integrity, Nucleus PLUS, MicroC/OS-II,
PikeOS,[70] QNX, RTEMS, RTXC Quadros, ThreadX, VxWorks, DRYOS, MQX, T-Kernel, OSE, SCIOPTA, OS9,[71] and RISC OS.
Mobile device operating systems
The ARM architecture is the primary hardware environment for most mobile device operating systems such as
iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows RT, Bada, Blackberry OS/Blackberry 10, MeeGo, Firefox OS, Tizen,
Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish and webOS.
Desktop/server operating systems
The ARM architecture is supported by RISC OS and multiple Unix-like operating systems including BSD
(NetBSD, FreeBSD), OpenSolaris[72] and various Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Chrome OS.

Android, a popular
operating system running on
the ARM architecture.

64-bit operating systems [edit]

Mobile device operating systems
iOS 7 and later, on 64-bit Apple SOCs, have ARMv8-A application support.
Desktop/server operating systems
Support for ARMv8-A was merged into the Linux kernel version 3.7 in late 2012.[73] ARMv8-A is supported by a number of Linux
distributions,[citation needed] such as Debian.[74][75]
Windows applications can be recompiled to run on 32-bit or 64-bit ARM in Linux with Winelib.[76][77]

See also

[edit]

ARM big.LITTLE, ARM's heterogeneous computing architecture

Electronics portal

ARM Accredited Engineer certification program

ARMulator
Comparison of current ARM cores
Amber (processor core), an open-source ARM-compatible processor core
AMULET microprocessor, an asynchronous implementation of the ARM architecture
Unicore, a 32-register architecture based heavily on a 32-bit ARM.

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Further reading

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[edit]

Assembly Language Programming : ARM Cortex-M3; 1st Edition; Vincent Mahout; Wiley-ISTE; 256 pages; 2012; ISBN 978-1848213296.
The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 Processors; 3rd Edition; Joseph Yiu; Newnes; 600 pages; 2013; ISBN 978-

0124080829.
The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex-M3; 2nd Edition; Joseph Yiu; Newnes; 480 pages; 2009; ISBN 978-1-85617-963-8. (Online Sample)
The Definitive Guide to the ARM Cortex-M0; 1st Edition; Joseph Yiu; Newnes; 552 pages; 2011; ISBN 978-0-12-385477-3. (Online Sample)
An Introduction To Reverse Engineering for Beginners" including ARM assembly; Dennis Yurichev; online book

ARM University Video introduction ; YouTube.

External links
Official website

[edit]

, ARM Ltd.

Wikimedia Commons has

media related to ARM
microprocessors.

ARM Virtualization Extensions

Quick Reference Cards
Instructions: Thumb
Opcodes: Thumb

, ARM and Thumb-2

, Thumb

, ARM

, Vector Floating Point

, ARM

, GNU Assembler Directives

V T E

Application ARM-based chips

[show]

V T E

Embedded ARM-based chips

[show]

V T E

Classic ARM-based chips

[show]

V T E

RISC-based processor architectures

[show]

V T E

Microcontrollers

[show]

Categories: ARM architecture

Instruction set architectures

1983 introductions

Acorn Computers

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