CH#4 - Embedded Systems - Assembly Language
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G/herCH#4 - Embedded Systems - Assembly Language
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G/herReal Time and Embedded System CH#4 – ES - Assembly Language By: Lecturer Abebe A.
(MSC in Computer Science)
CHAPTER FOUR
Embedded Systems - Assembly Language
Overview
Assembly languages were developed to provide mnemonics or symbols for the machine level
code instructions. Assembly language programs consist of mnemonics, thus they should be
translated into machine code. A program that is responsible for this conversion is known
as assembler. Assembly language is often termed as a low-level language because it directly
works with the internal structure of the CPU. To program in assembly language, a programmer
must know all the registers of the CPU.
Different programming languages such as C, C++, Java and various other languages are called
high-level languages because they do not deal with the internal details of a CPU. In contrast, an
assembler is used to translate an assembly language program into machine code (sometimes
also called object code or opcode). Similarly, a compiler translates a high-level language into
machine code. For example, to write a program in C language, one must use a C compiler to
translate the program into machine language.
Structure of Assembly Language
An assembly language program is a series of statements, which are either assembly language
instructions such as ADD and MOV, or statements called directives.
An instruction tells the CPU what to do, while a directive (also called pseudo-instructions)
gives instruction to the assembler. For example, ADD and MOV instructions are commands
which the CPU runs, while ORG and END are assembler directives. The assembler places the
opcode to the memory location 0 when the ORG directive is used, while END indicates to the
end of the source code. A program language instruction consists of the following four fields:
A square bracket ( [ ] ) indicates that the field is optional.
The label field allows the program to refer to a line of code by name. The label fields
cannot exceed a certain number of characters.
The mnemonics and operands fields together perform the real work of the program and
accomplish the tasks. Statements like ADD A , C & MOV C, #68 where ADD and MOV
are the mnemonics, which produce opcodes ; "A, C" and "C, #68" are operands. These two
fields could contain directives. Directives do not generate machine code and are used only
by the assembler, whereas instructions are translated into machine code for the CPU to
execute.
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Real Time and Embedded System CH#4 – ES - Assembly Language By: Lecturer Abebe A. (MSC in Computer Science)
The comment field begins with a semicolon which is a comment indicator.
Notice the Label "HERE" in the program. Any label which refers to an instruction should
be followed by a colon.
Assembling and Running an 8051 Program
Here we will discuss about the basic form of an assembly language. The steps to create,
assemble, and run an assembly language program are as follows: -
First, we use an editor to type in a program similar to the above program. Editors like MS-
DOS EDIT program that comes with all Microsoft operating systems can be used to create
or edit a program. The Editor must be able to produce an ASCII file. The "asm" extension
for the source file is used by an assembler in the next step.
The "asm" source file contains the program code created in Step 1. It is fed to an 8051
assembler. The assembler then converts the assembly language instructions into machine
code instructions and produces an .obj file (object file) and a .lst file (list file). It is also
called as a source file, that's why some assemblers require that this file have the "src"
extensions. The "lst" file is optional. It is very useful to the program because it lists all the
opcodes and addresses as well as errors that the assemblers detected.
Assemblers require a third step called linking. The link program takes one or more object
files and produces an absolute object file with the extension "abs".
Next, the "abs" file is fed to a program called "OH" (object to hex converter), which creates
a file with the extension "hex" that is ready to burn in to the ROM.
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Real Time and Embedded System CH#4 – ES - Assembly Language By: Lecturer Abebe A. (MSC in Computer Science)
Data Type
The 8051 microcontroller contains a single data type of 8-bits, and each register is also of 8-
bits size. The programmer has to break down data larger than 8-bits (00 to FFH, or to 255 in
decimal) so that it can be processed by the CPU.
DB (Define Byte)
The DB directive is the most widely used data directive in the assembler. It is used to define
the 8-bit data. It can also be used to define decimal, binary, hex, or ASCII formats data. For
decimal, the "D" after the decimal number is optional, but it is required for "B" (binary) and
"Hl" (hexadecimal).
To indicate ASCII, simply place the characters in quotation marks ('like this'). The assembler
generates ASCII code for the numbers/characters automatically. The DB directive is the only
directive that can be used to define ASCII strings larger than two characters; therefore, it
should be used for all the ASCII data definitions. Some examples of DB are given below: -
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Real Time and Embedded System CH#4 – ES - Assembly Language By: Lecturer Abebe A. (MSC in Computer Science)
Either single or double quotes can be used around ASCII strings. DB is also used to allocate
memory in byte-sized chunks.
Assembler Directives
Some of the directives of 8051 are as follows: -
ORG (origin) − The origin directive is used to indicate the beginning of the address. It
takes the numbers in hexa or decimal format. If H is provided after the number, the number
is treated as hexa, otherwise decimal. The assembler converts the decimal number to hexa.
EQU (equate) − It is used to define a constant without occupying a memory location. EQU
associates a constant value with a data label so that the label appears in the program, its
constant value will be substituted for the label. While executing the instruction "MOV R3,
#COUNT", the register R3 will be loaded with the value 25 (notice the # sign). The
advantage of using EQU is that the programmer can change it once and the assembler will
change all of its occurrences; the programmer does not have to search the entire program.
END directive − It indicates the end of the source (asm) file. The END directive is the last
line of the program; anything after the END directive is ignored by the assembler.
Labels in Assembly Language
All the labels in assembly language must follow the rules given below −
Each label name must be unique. The names used for labels in assembly language
programming consist of alphabetic letters in both uppercase and lowercase, number 0
through 9, and special characters such as question mark (?), period (.), at the rate @,
underscore (_), and dollar($).
The first character should be in alphabetical character; it cannot be a number.
Reserved words cannot be used as a label in the program. For example, ADD and MOV
words are the reserved words, since they are instruction mnemonics.
