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processor. The microprogram controller outputs can be forced into the high-impedance state, and pre-programmed sequences of microinstructions can be executed via external access to the address lines.

Table 6 shows the result of each instruction in controlling the multiplexer which determines the Y outputs, and in controlling the three enable signals PL, MAP, and VECT. The effect on the register/counter and the stack after the next positive-going clock edge is also shown. The multiplexer determines which internal source drives the Y outputs. The value loaded into m PC is either identical to the Y output or else 1 greater, as determined by CI. For each instruction, one and only one of the three outputs PL, MAP, and VECT is LOW. If these outputs control three-state enables for the primary source of microprogram jumps (usually part of a pipeline register), a PROM which maps the instruction to a microinstruction starting location, and an optional third source (often a vector from a DMA or interrupt source), respectively, the three-state sources can drive the D inputs without further logic.

Several inputs, as shown in Table 7, can modify instruction execution. The combination CC HIGH and CCEN LOW is used as a test in 10 of the 16 instructions. RLD, when LOW, causes the D input to be loaded into the register/counter, overriding any HOLD or DEC operation specified in the instruction. OE, normally LOW, may be forced HIGH to remove the Am2910 Y outputs from a three-state bus.

The Am2910 provides 16 instructions which select the address of the next microinstruction to be executed. Four of the instructions are unconditional-their effect depends only on the instruction. Ten of the instructions have an effect which is partially controlled by an external, data-dependent condition. Three of the instructions have an effect which is partially controlled by the contents of the internal register/counter. The instruction set is shown in Table 6. In this discussion it is assumed that C_n is tied HIGH.

In the 10 conditional instructions, the result of the data- dependent test is applied to CC. If the CC input is LOW, the test is considered to have been passed, and the action specified in the name occurs; otherwise, the test has failed and an alternate (often simply the execution of the next sequential microinstruction) occurs. Testing of CC may be disabled for a specific microinstruction by setting CCEN HIGH, which unconditionally forces the action specified in the name; that is, it forces a pass. Other ways of using CCEN include (1) tying it HIGH, which is useful if no microinstruction is data-dependent; (2) tying it LOW if data-dependent instructions are never forced unconditionally; or (3) tying it to the source of Am2910 instruction bit I₀, which leaves instructions 4, 6, and 10 as data-dependent but makes others unconditional. All of these tricks save one bit of microcode width.

The effect of three instructions depends on the contents of the register/counter. Unless the counter holds a value of zero, it is decremented; if it does hold zero, it is held and a different microprogram next address is selected. These instructions are useful for executing a microinstruction loop a known number of times. Instruction 15 is affected both by the external condition code and the internal register/counter.

Perhaps the best technique for understanding the Am2910 is to simply take each instruction and review its operation. In order to provide some feel for the actual execution of these instructions, Fig. 29 is included and depicts examples of all 16 instructions.

The examples given in Fig. 29 should be interpreted in the following manner: The intent is to show microprogram flow as various microprogram memory words are executed, For example, the CONTINUE instruction, instruction 14, as shown in Fig. 29, simply means that the contents of microprogram memory word 50 are executed and then the contents of word 51 are executed. This is followed by the contents of microprogram memory word 52 and the contents of microprogram memory word 53. The microprogram addresses used in the examples were arbitrarily chosen and have no meaning other than to show instruction flow. The exception to this is the first example, JUMP ZERO, which forces the microprogram location counter to address ZERO, Each dot refers to the time that the contents of the microprogram memory word is in the pipeline register. While no special symbology is used for the conditional instructions, the test to follow will explain what the conditional choices are in each example.

It might be appropriate at this time to mention that AMD has a microprogram assembler called AMDASM, which has the capability of using the Am2910 instructions in symbolic representation. AMDASM's Am2910 instruction symbolics (or mnemonics) are given in Fig. 29 for each instruction and are also shown in Table 6.

Instruction 0. JZ (JUMP and ZERO, or RESET) unconditionally specifies that the address of the next microinstruction is zero. Many designs use this feature for power-up sequences and provide the power-up firmware beginning at microprogram memory word location 0.

Instruction 1 is a CONDITIONAL JUMP-TO-SUBROUTINE via the address provided in the pipeline register. As shown in Fig. 29, the machine might have executed words at addresses 50, 51, and 52, When the contents of address 52 are in the pipeline register, the next address control function is the CONDITIONAL JUMP-TO-SUBROUTINE. Here, if the test is passed, the next instruction executed will be the contents of microprogram memory location 90. If the test has failed, the JUMP-TO-

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