Nova Patents
EP0902361A2

Single-chip microcomputer

Abstract

A microcomputer MCU adopting the general purpose register method is enabled to have a small program capacity or a high program memory using efficiency and low system cost, while enjoying the advantage of simplification of the instruction decoding as in the RISC machine having a fixed length instruction format of the prior art, by adopting an instruction format of a fixed length of 2n bits which is smaller than the length of the maximum data word fed to instruction execution means. The control of the coded division is executed by noting the code bits.

EP0902361A2, drawing sheet 1
Sheet 1 of 272

Term

Term ended

Projected expiry passed 22 June 2012, 14.3 years ago.

  1. Priority
  2. Filed
  3. Published
  4. Projected expiry
  5. Today

23 claims: 8 independent, 15 dependent

  1. 1
    A microcomputer formed on a single chip comprising:a CPU having a plurality of 32-bit general purpose registers;a ROM;and a data bus coupled to said CPU and said ROM, wherein each instruction stored in said ROM is of a fixed length of 16 bits.
  2. 6
    A central processing unit formed on a single semiconductor chip comprising:a plurality of general purpose registers each having a length of 32 bits, the central processing unit being capable of processing only instructions from an instruction set of a 16-bit fixed length instruction format.
  3. 10
    A reduced instruction set computer type microprocessor comprising an integrated CPU which includes:a plurality of 32-bit general purpose registers;and means for processing only instructions from an instruction set of a 16-bit fixed length instruction format.
  4. 13
    A central processing unit capable of processing instructions in an instruction set comprising:a plurality of 32-bit general purpose registers;a 32-bit program counter register;a 32-bit base register for storing a base address;and a 32-bit procedure register for storing a return address from a subroutine procedure, wherein each of said instructions to be processed by said CPU in said instruction set has a fixed length of 16 bits.
  5. 14
    A microcomputer formed on a single semiconductor chip comprising:a CPU having a 32-bit general purpose register and a 32-bit program counter register;a cache memory;and a data bus coupled to said CPU and said cache memory;wherein each instruction stored in said cache memory has a fixed length of 16 bits.
  6. 16
    A microcomputer comprising:a CPU having a 32-bit general purpose register and a 32-bit program counter register;a memory for storing an instruction to be fed to said CPU;and a data bus coupled to said CPU and said memory and being 32 bits in width, wherein each instruction stored in said memory has a fixed length of 16 bits.
  7. 18
    A central processing unit capable of processing instructions in an instruction set comprising:a plurality of 32-bit general purpose registers;and a program counter register, wherein each of said instructions to be processed by said CPU in said instruction set has a fixed length of 16 bits, and wherein the bit length of said program counter register is larger than the bit length of each of said instructions.
  8. 21
    A microcomputer formed on a single semiconductor chip comprising:a processor for processing only instructions from an instruction set of a 16-bit fixed length instruction format, and including a plurality of 32-bit general purpose registers;and a memory for storing an instruction to be fed to said processor.