Motorola Corporation

Fuad H Musa

Pern Shaw

Michael F Wiles

Stephen J Kreinick

Thomas H Bennett

R Gary Daniels

Thomas G Gunter

Terry F Ritter

Perng Hsiao

William C Bruce

Joel F Boney

Wayne D Harrington

W Bryant Wilder, Jr

William B Wilder, Jr

Wm B Wilder, Jr

A microprocessor on a monolithic integrated circuit is provided having a single clock input pin for receiving a clock input signal. The clock input signal is used to gate address data onto the address bus and to enable a data input dynamic latch. In addition the input clock signal is used to generate two complementary non-overlapping clock signals used for synchronizing purposes within the microprocessor.

Data processor having single clock pin

A single-chip microcomputer comprises a CPU (1), a RAM (2), a ROM (3), a timer (4), serial I/O communication logic (5), four I/O ports (11-14) and various power supply, clock, and control inputs. One of the I/O ports (13) is user programmable by application of specific signals to mode selection pins (P20-22) for configuration in several possible ways. The programmable port comprises a plurality of lines which each may be individually programmed as input or output lines to peripheral equipment associated with the microcomputer. Alternatively, the port lines can be programmed to serve as a bidirectional data bus to external memory. Alternatively, the port lines can be programmed to be multiplexed data and address lines to external memory. Bus arbitration logic is provided to route data to the CPU from either on-chip memory or external memory.

Microcomputer with programmable multi-function port

A digital processor capable of responding to a sync instruction for high-speed synchronization of hardware and software is provided. The sync instruction places the procesor in a stopped state and lets the processor start up again only upon receipt of an interrupt. If the interrupt is disabled by being masked, the stopped state is simply cleared and the sequencing of instructions continues without vectoring to the interrupt service routine. However if the interrupt is not disabled, the processor will handle the interrupt just as it would if it were not in the stopped state. Upon return from the interrupt service routine, the stopped state is cleared and the sequencing of instructions continues. In this way, the sync instruction provides a mechanism for synchronizing software with hardware external to the processor without the delays associated with interrupts or busy-wait loops.

Method for synchronizing hardware and software

A pulse generating circuit is coupled to an address decoder to provide the address enable signal to the address decoder. An input pulse is provided to the pulse generating circuit and the output of the pulse generating circuit is coupled to the address decoder. The output of the pulse generating circuit keeps the address decoder enabled until the trailing edge of the input pulse. Internal to the pulse generating circuit the input pulse is connected to a delay. The output of the delay is connected to a first NOR gate. Another input of the first NOR gate receives the input pulse. The output of the first NOR gate is connected to a second NOR gate. Another input of the second NOR gate also receives the input pulse. The output of the second NOR gate is the output of the pulse generating circuit which is coupled to the address decoder. The pulse generating circuit provides a momentary output pulse at the trailing edge of the input pulse to momentarily inhibit the address decoder. The pulse generating circuit is particularly useful, in a microprocessor having an on-chip RAM, to inhibit the RAM address decoder at the trailing edge of a signal derived from a microprocessor clock thereby virtually eliminating instability problems of the RAM.

RAM Address enable circuit for a microprocessor having an on-chip RAM

A microprocessor interconnected to a RAM on the same integrated circuit chip. Interconnect circuitry connects the RAM to the microprocessor data bus to allow RAM data to be transferred to an instruction register of the microprocessor which permits the RAM to contain instructions and operation codes. A sense amplifier is used to provide an output from the RAM. At least one buffer is coupled to the output of the sense amplifier. A bilateral switch is coupled to the at least one buffer and controllably switches the output of the at least one buffer to the microprocessor internal data bus and to an external data bus.

On chip ram interconnect to MPU bus

A microprocessor comprises an internal address bus having a first portion (2,4) having a plurality of conductors carrying the low order address byte and a second portion (10) having a plurality of conductors for carrying the high order address byte. The microprocessor further comprises a plurality of registers, including an incrementor (12,13), a program counter (14,15), a temporary register (16,17), a stack pointer (18,19), an index register (20,21), and an accumulator (22,24), each comprising a pair of 8-bit registers for temporarily storing information. An arithmetic logic unit (28) performs computational operations on digital information within the microprocessor. The microprocessor includes a pair of internal data buses (6,8) each having a plurality of conductors for conducting digital information within the microprocessor. Means are provided for coupling selected ones of the registers, or the high or low order portions thereof, to the first and second data buses. The provision plural internal data buses permits a greater number of transfers of digital information to occur within the microprocessor during each machine cycle. The result is more efficient microprocessor operation and higher throughput.

Microprocessor having plural internal data buses

A method of performing a fast interrupt in a digital data processor having the capability of handling more than one interrupt is provided. When a fast interrupt request is received a flag is set and the program counter and condition code registers are stored on a stack. At the end of the interrupt servicing routine the return from interrupt instructions retrieves the condition code register which contains the status of the digital data processor and checks to see whether the flag has been set or not. If the flag is set it indicates that a fast interrupt was serviced and therefore only the program counter is unstacked.

Fast interrupt method

There is provided a voltage level detecting circuit useful as power-up/power-down voltage indicator for a field effect transistor integrated circuit. A constant voltage reference generator is provided by a depletion type transistor in series with two enhancement type transistors coupled between power supply terminals of the integrated circuit chip. Each of the enhancement type transistors have their gate electrodes connected to their drain electrodes while the depletion type transistor has its gate electrode connected to the more negative or reference terminal of the power supply voltage. A constant voltage output is taken from between the junction of one of the enhancement mode transistors and the depletion type transistor. This constant voltage output can be compared against a voltage obtained from a voltage divider circuit which provides an output that varies in accordance with variations in the power supply. The voltage level detector circuit is particularly useful in microprocessors and microcomputer integrated circuit chips.

FET Voltage level detecting circuit

An analog-to-digital converter includes a first and a second comparator. The first comparator generates a plurality of quantizing outputs defining voltage gaps and also has first and second reference current outputs whose magnitudes are representative of which voltage gap encompasses the analog input voltage and a third reference current output whose magnitude is representative of the voltage gap width. A first encoder receives the quantizing outputs of the first comparator and generates a binary number which represents which of the voltage gaps the analog input voltage is encompassed by. The reference current outputs of the first comparator are input to a reference voltage level shifting circuit whose shifted reference output voltage is provided as an input to a second comparator which compares the analog input with a plurality of internal reference voltages which form a second continuous range of voltage gaps. The second comparator has a plurality of outputs, one corresponding to each of the voltage gaps encompassed by the reference voltages in the second comparator. A second encoder receives as inputs the outputs of the second comparator and generates a binary output which represents the least significant bit group of the analog input voltage.

Serial-parallel analog-to-digital converter using voltage level shifting

An analog-to-digital converter includes a first and a second comparator each of which receives an analog input. The first comparator generates a plurality of reference voltages which establish a first continuous range of voltage gaps. The first comparator has a plurality of quantizing outputs, one of which will be at a logical one and the rest of which will be at logical zeros in order to indicate which of the voltage gaps encompasses the analog input voltage. The first comparator also has first and second reference current outputs whose magnitudes are representative of which voltage gap encompasses the analog input voltage and a third reference current output whose magnitude is representative of the voltage gap width. A first encoder receives the quantizing outputs of the first comparator and generates a binary number which represents which of the voltage gaps the analog input voltage is encompassed by and which constitutes the most significant bit group of the binary digital representation of the analog input voltage. The reference current outputs of the first comparator are input to a reference voltage level shifting circuit whose output voltage represents the voltage difference between a first boundary of the voltage gap which encompasses the analog input voltage and the maximum reference voltage value associated with the first comparator. The reference voltage level shifting output voltage is produced concurrently with the action of the first encoder, thereby providing overlapping operations for increased conversion speeds. This shifted reference voltage is provided as an input to a second comparator which compares the analog input with a plurality of internal reference voltages which form a second continuous range of voltage gaps. The second comparator has a plurality of outputs, one corresponding to each of the voltage gaps encompassed by the reference voltages in the second comparator. The second comparator produces a logical one on an output corresponding to the particular voltage gap defined by the shifted reference voltage. A second encoder receives as inputs the outputs of the second comparator and generates a binary output which represents the least significant bit group of the analog input voltage. In combination, the output of the first encoder and the output of the second encoder form a binary digital representation of the analog input voltage, including the most significant bits and the least significant bits thereof.

Serial parallel analog-to-digital converter using voltage level shifting

An analog-to-digital converter includes a first comparator which receives an analog input. The first comparator generates a plurality of reference voltages which establish a first continuous range of voltage gaps. The first comparator has a plurality of quantizing outputs, one of which will be at a logical one and the rest of which will be at logical zeros in order to indicate which of the voltage gaps encompasses the analog input voltage. The first comparator also has a reference current output whose magnitude is representative of which voltage gap encompasses the analog input voltage. A first encoder receives the quantizing outputs of the first comparator and generates a binary number which represents which of the voltage gaps the analog input voltage is encompassed by and which constitutes the most significant bit group of the binary digital representation of the analog input voltage. A voltage subtractor circuit receives as inputs the reference current output of the first comparator and the analog input. The voltage subtractor produces an output voltage which represents the voltage difference between a first boundary of the voltage gap which encompasses the analog input voltage and the value of the analog input voltage. The voltage subtractor output voltage is produced concurrently with the action of the first encoder, thereby providing overlapping operations for increased conversion speeds. This voltage is provided as an input to a second comparator which compares the output voltage produced by the voltage subtractor with a plurality of internal reference voltages which form a second continuous range of voltage gaps. The second comparator has a plurality of outputs, one corresponding to each of the voltage gaps encompassed by the reference voltages in the second comparator. The second comparator produces a logical one on an output corresponding to the particular voltage gap which encompasses the difference voltage produced by the voltage subtractor. A second encoder receives as inputs the outputs of the second comparator and generates a binary output which represents the difference voltage produced by the voltage subtractor and which constitutes the least significant bit group of the analog input voltage. In combination, the output of the first encoder and the output of the second encoder form a binary digital representation of the analog input voltage, including the most significant bits and the least significant bits thereof.

Serial-parallel analog-to-digital converter using voltage subtraction

A circuit and a method for adding an 8-bit operand to a 16-bit operand are disclosed such that the number of machine cycles required by a data processor to perform such an addition is reduced. The 8-bit operand and the least significant byte of the 16-bit operand are added together within an 8-bit adder circuit to generate the least significant byte of the result. Simultaneously, the most significant byte of the 16-bit operand is stored in a temporary register and is also input to an increment/decrement network. The adder circuit, after a given delay time, generates a carry signal depending on whether a carry-out was produced by the addition. The carry signal and the sign bit of the 8-bit operand control the mode of operation of the increment/decrement network and determine whether the increment/decrement network or the temporary register will be selected to provide the most significant byte of the result.

Carry anticipator circuit and method

A digital data processor having the capability of handling more than one interrupt wherein one of the interrupts is a fast interrupt is provided. Interrupts are received by a priority network which establishes the priority of the interrupts should more than one interrupt occur at the same time. The output of the priority network is stored in a latch and the output of the latch is coupled to a vector and code logic circuit which encodes the vector address for the interrupt received. Whenever a fast interrupt is received a flag is set in a storage means so that when the system returns from interrupt it will be able to determine whether a fast interrupt had been serviced or not.

Processor interrupt system

A RAM being powered by a standby voltage supply and having control circuitry to save all or a portion of the information stored in the RAM during power up and power down is provided. A latch is used to hold an input signal just prior to power down to just after power up. The latch is coupled to read and write and word select logic so that the latch can inhibit the read and write logic as well as inhibiting the addressability of any storage cells in the retained portion of the RAM during power up and power down. Transistors having a control electrode are connected to the word select lines of the RAM and hold the word select lines near zero voltage during power up and power down to prevent information from flowing on the word select lines. The control electrodes of the transistors are connected to an output of the latch.

Ram retention during power up and power down

A high-speed voltage subtractor circuit suitable for use in a serial-parallel A/D converter uses differential current switches to select a predetermined reference voltage value as one input to a precision current matching circuit whose other input is an applied analog input signal. An output buffer circuit coupled to the current matching circuit produces an output signal equal to the difference between the analog input signal and the reference voltage value.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Fuad H Musa