PIC18F2220/2320/4220/4320
5.3
Fast Register Stack
5.4
PCL, PCLATH and PCLATU
A “fast return” option is available for interrupts. A Fast
Register Stack is provided for the Status, WREG and
BSR registers and are only one in depth. The stack is
not readable or writable and is loaded with the current
value of the corresponding register when the processor
vectors for an interrupt. The values in the registers are
then loaded back into the working registers if the
RETFIE, FASTinstruction is used to return from the
interrupt.
The Program Counter (PC) specifies the address of the
instruction to fetch for execution. The PC is 21-bits
wide. The low byte, known as the PCL register, is both
readable and writable. The high byte, or PCH register,
contains the PC<15:8> bits and is not directly readable
or writable. Updates to the PCH register may be per-
formed through the PCLATH register. The upper byte is
called PCU. This register contains the PC<20:16> bits
and is not directly readable or writable. Updates to the
PCU register may be performed through the PCLATU
register.
All interrupt sources will push values into the stack reg-
isters. If both low and high priority interrupts are
enabled, the stack registers cannot be used reliably to
return from low priority interrupts. If a high priority inter-
rupt occurs while servicing a low priority interrupt, the
stack register values stored by the low priority interrupt
will be overwritten. Users must save the key registers
in software during a low priority interrupt.
The contents of PCLATH and PCLATU will be trans-
ferred to the program counter by any operation that
writes PCL. Similarly, the upper two bytes of the pro-
gram counter will be transferred to PCLATH and
PCLATU by an operation that reads PCL. This is useful
for computed offsets to the PC (see Section 5.8.1
“Computed GOTO”).
If interrupt priority is not used, all interrupts may use the
Fast Register Stack for returns from interrupt.
The PC addresses bytes in the program memory. To
prevent the PC from becoming misaligned with word
instructions, the LSB of PCL is fixed to a value of ‘0’.
The PC increments by 2 to address sequential
instructions in the program memory.
If no interrupts are used, the Fast Register Stack can be
used to restore the Status, WREG and BSR registers at
the end of a subroutine call. To use the Fast Register
Stack for a subroutine call, a CALL label, FAST
instruction must be executed to save the Status,
WREG and BSR registers to the Fast Register Stack. A
RETURN, FASTinstruction is then executed to restore
these registers from the Fast Register Stack.
The CALL, RCALL, GOTO and program branch
instructions write to the program counter directly. For
these instructions, the contents of PCLATH and
PCLATU are not transferred to the program counter.
Example 5-1 shows a source code example that uses
the Fast Register Stack during a subroutine call and
return.
EXAMPLE 5-1:
FAST REGISTER STACK
CODE EXAMPLE
CALL SUB1, FAST
;STATUS, WREG, BSR
;SAVED IN FAST REGISTER
;STACK
•
•
SUB1
•
•
RETURN FAST
;RESTORE VALUES SAVED
;IN FAST REGISTER STACK
DS39599C-page 56
2003 Microchip Technology Inc.
MICROCHIP [ MICROCHIP ]
