Gate Microcode and Macrocode Compiler

# 4.0 Gate Microcode and Macrocode Compiler

Gmac is a simple microcode and macrocode compiler which can be used to create memory files for tkgate. You can write declarations to define your own microcode and macrocode. The current version of gmac is fairly simple; no attempt is made to handle arbitrary instruction sets with complex addressing modes, but it should be sufficient to create simple micro- and macro-programs. To compile a micro/macro program description, use the command:

    gmac infile.gm -o outfile.mem -l outfile.map

This will read the description in "infile.gm", and generate the memory file "outfile.mem" and and the optional map file "outfile.map". The memory file will contain the appropriate "memory" keywords to load multiple memories. The map file contains the list of symbols defined in the input file in a human-readable form.

Gmac input files consist of a sequence of declarations. Whitespace and newlines are ignored, and comments are indicated by a '//'.

### 4.1 Defining Memory Banks

The memories which will be generated are declared with "bank" statements. A bank statement has the form:
type bank [msb:lsb] name ?[first:last]?;
The type parameter is one of "microcode", "macrocode" or "map" and specifies what type of memory this is a bank for. Microcode and macrocode banks specify the memories to be used for the micro- and macro-programs respectively. Map banks are typically used to look up the microaddress for implementing a macro-instruction. Each of the memory types is optional and can be omitted.

The bit range [msb:lsb] specifies the portion of the word which will be stored at an address in the memory name. The specified memory should be the full path name of a memory in the circuit file. A word can be broken accross multiple memories by using multiple bank statements. A single bank is limited to 32 bits, so memories with very long words, such as a micro-program will probably have to be broken into multiple memories. An optional address specifier after the memory name specifies the range of address which this memory will hold. If no address range is specified, this memory will be used for all words. As an example, consider the set of bank declarations:

    microcode bank[31:0] iunit.m1;
    microcode bank[63:32] iunit.m2;
    map bank[7:0] iunit.map;
    macrocode bank[7:0] memory.m1;

This indicates that the mirco-program will be consist of 64-bit instructions with the low half of the instructions being stored in "iunit.m1" and the high half of the instructions being stored in "iunit.m2". The map memory contains 8-bit data and is stored in "iunit.map". The main macrocode memory has 8-bit words and is stored in "memory.m1".

### 4.2 Defining the Micro-Instruction Set

Microcode instructions are defined using the 'field' declaration. A field declaration consists of the 'field' keyword followed by one or more comma-separated declarators. A simple declarator is simply a name followed by a bit range in square brackets. For example:

    field cin[18], idata[9:2];

declares that bit 18 of the micro insruction has the name "cin", and the bits 2 through 9 have the name "idata". Single bit fields can optionally be prepended with the "~" to indicate they are active low signals. A set of symbolic values can also be supplied for a field. For example:

    field mpcop[1:0]={
    	 next=0,	// Increment mpc
    	 reinit=1,	// Restart CPU
    	 jmap=2,	// Jump from map value
    	 jump=3		// Jump from condition
    };

declares a 2-bit field "mpcop" with a set of symbolic names for field values. Hexidecimal symbolic values can be specied by prepending them with a "0x".

### 4.3 Writing the Micro-Program

A block of microcode is defined using the "begin microcode @" specifier. A start address must be specifed after the declaration. The end of the block is indicated with the "end" keyword. The micro-program defined in the block will be stored starting at the specified address. Micro instructions consists of a list of fields (defined by the 'field' keyword described above), with an optional value specification. The microinstruction is ended by a ";". Micro instructions can be labeled by specifying an identifier followed by a colon.

For each single-bit field, the presence of a field name in a microinstruction indicates that that bit should be asseted. For normal fields, this means setting the bit to 1 in the microinstruction. For active low fields (indicated with a "~" symbol in the field declaration) this means setting the bit to 0. The bit corrsponding to any active low fields not specified in an instruction will be set to 1. For multi-bit fields, a value should be specified after an '=' symbol. The value can be either a fixed constant, a symbolic value defined for the field, or a label which will be resolved to the appropriate microinstruction address when the specification is compiled.

For example, consider the microcode fragment:

    begin microcode @ 0
    start:	clq;								// Q <- 0
    	idata=0x1 ALU_AZERO ALU_OP=add bop=idata ldqh;			// Q.H <- 1
    	ALU_AZERO ALU_OP=add bop=qreg dout ldpc;			// PC <- Q
    	mpcop=jump mpccond=jmp mpcaddr=fetch;				// jump to 'fetch'
    	mpcop=next;
    end

This specifies that this frament will begin at address 0. The first mirco instruction is labeled 'start' and simply asserts the signal 'clq'. In this case, this clears the contents of the Q register. The next micro-instruction puts the value '1' on the field name "idata", asserts the signal "ALU_AZERO", puts the symbolic value "add" on the field "ALU_IP", the symbolic value "idata" on the field "bop" and asserts the signal "ldqh". This set of operations causes a 1 to be stored in the high half of the Q register. The subsequent instructions load the program counter PC from the value stored in the Q register (0x100), and jumps to the label 'fetch'.

### 4.4 Defining the Macro-Instruction Set

The macro-instruction set is defined using "register", "operands" and "op" declarations. The "register" keyword is used to define the register names used in the macrocode and assign them a numeric value.

For example:

    registers R0=0, R1=1, R2=2, R3=3, R4=4, R5=5, FP=6, SP=7;

declares 8 registers name R0 through R5, FP and SP. With numeric values as specified in the declaration. The numeric value here will be used in building the macro instruction using a register.

#### 4.4.1 Operand Declarations

The "operands" declaration specifies a set of operand types that an instruction can have. An operands declaration consists of the "operand" keyword, a symbolic name, and a list of addressing modes. Currently only four addressing modes are recognized: immediate, register direct, register indirect, and indexed. Since the syntax of the operand declarations is rather complicated, it will be explained with an example. For instance, suppose we wish to define an 'add' instruction which can use the following addressing mode combinations:

       add	R1,#1234	// register direct, immediate
       add  R1,R2		// register direct, register direct
       add  R1,(R2)		// register direct, register indirect
       add  R1,#Array(R3)	// register direct, indexed

We can define the addressing mode combinations with the declaration:

    operands myopts {
        %1,#2     = { +0[1:0]=0; +1[7:4]=%1; +1[3:0]=0; +2=#2[7:0]; +3=#2[15:8]; };
        %1,%2     = { +0[1:0]=1; +1[7:4]=%1; +1[3:0]=%2; };
        %1,(%2)   = { +0[1:0]=2; +1[7:4]=%1; +1[3:0]=0; +2=#2[7:0]; +3=#2[15:8]; };
        %1,#2(%3) = { +0[1:0]=3; +1[7:4]=%1; +1[3:0]=%3; +2=#2[7:0]; +3=#2[15:8]; };
    };

This block defines a set of 4 operand combinations for a two-operand instruction. Each operand combination is specified by a comma separated list of addressing modes. A '-' can be used in place of the operand list to indicate instructions with no operands. Registers are indicated by a '%' followed by an id number, and numbers are indicated by a '#' followed by an id number. The statements in braces following an address mode combination specify a sequence of assignments used to build the macroinstruction. Each assignment contains a word number within the macro instruction, an optional bit range, and a value to store at the specified location. If the value is a simple number, the specified number will be stored. If the value is prepended with a '%' or '#', then the value is taken to be the id number for a register or number specified in the instruction. For example, on a machine with a byte-addressable main memory, the previous operand declarations will generate the bytes:

       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       | undefined |1 1|   |0 0 0 1|0 1 0 1|  |0 0 1 1|1 0 0 0|  |0 0 0 1|0 0 1 0|
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+  +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

for the insruction:

       add  R1, #0x1234(R5)

Since the addressing modes are "register" and "indexed", the last entry in the list of operand combinations applies. The "+0[1:0]=3" statement sets the low two bits of the first byte to binary '11'. The "+1[7:4]=%1" statement sets the high half of the second bytes to the code for the R1 register, and the "+1[3:0]=%3" statement sets the low half of the second word to the code for the R5 register. The "+2=#2[7:0]" and "+3=#2[15:8]" statements store the index value '0x1234' in the third and fourth bytes of the instruction low byte first.

One last type of memory assignment is the relative address assignment. Relative addresses are indicated with the '@' operator. The pair of statements "+2=#2@[7:0]" and "+3=#2@[15:8]" will store the difference of the operand with id 2 and the address of the first byte of the instruction. This feature can be used to define relative branching instructions. An optional value can be specified after the '@' as a further fixed offset.

#### 4.4.2 Macro-Instruction Declarations

After defining a set of operand declarations, you must define the macro-instruction set. A macro-instruction declaration consists of the 'op' keyword, an identifier, and a definition in braces. The definition can include memory assignment statements as described in the section on operands above, 'map' statements and an operand declaration. For example:

    op add {
      map add_ri : 0x68;	// register direct, immediate
      map add_rr : 0x69;	// register direct, register direct
      map add_rd : 0x6a;	// register direct, register indirect
      map add_rx : 0x6b;	// register direct, indexed
     +0[7:0]=0x68;
      operands myopts;
    };

defines the 'add' instruction with the operand set defined by myopts. The statement '+0[7:0]=0x68' defines the base opcode for the instruction and the position to store it in the instruction word. The 'map' statements define map memory values that can be used to map an opcode to a microinstruction address. The left side of the 'map' statement specifies a label in the microprogram. The right side specifies an opcode value which maps to that address. Since the low two bits of the first byte are used to indicate the addressing mode, we need four map statements for each of the four operand combinations. The map declarations shown here will cause the map memory to contain the addresses for the microinstructions add_ri, add_rr, add_rd and add_ri at the addresses 0x68, 0x69, 0x6a and 0x6b in the map memory.

### 4.5 Writing the Macro-Program

Similar to the micro-program block, the macro-program block is started by the "begin macrocode" specifier and ended by the 'end' specifier. For example:

      begin macrocode @ 0x100

will start a block of macrocode at address 0x100. Unlike other portions of the gmac specification, newlines are significant in the macrocode block and indicate the end of a macro instruction. A macro program consists of a list of instructions and directives. Any of the macro instructions defined can be used, and labels can be defined by starting a line with an identifier followed by a ":".

Directive | Description
--- | ---
label: .symbol value | Defines a label to be a specified value.
.short value, ... | Inserts a set of two-byte values at successive memory locations.
.long value, ... | Inserts a set of four-byte values at successive memory locations.
.byte value, ... | Inserts a set of byte values at successive memory locations. This directive can also take strings denoted by double quotes with each byte of the string being stored at successive locations.
.bss value | Reserves value bytes of unallocated memory at the current position. This directive can be used to define uninitialized global variables.
.proc label | This directive can be used in conjunction with ".end" to define a procedure. The label specified will be assigned the current address, but any labels defined between the ".proc" and the ".end" directives will be treated as local labels.
.end | Ends a procedure definition.

Here is a short example of a macro program:

    begin macrocode @ 0x100
    ttydata:	.symbol	0x11	// tty data in/out register
    ttystatus:	.symbol	0x10	// tty status register
    start:
    	movw	SP, 0		// Initialize the stack pointer to 0
    	movw	FP, 0		// Initialize the frame pointer to 0

    	push	msg		// Push msg on the stack.
    	call	print		// Call the procedure 'print'
    	add	SP,2		// Reset the stack pointer.

    sdone:	jmp	sdone		// Hang in an infinate loop.

    ////////////////////
    //	print(s)	Print the string s
    //
    .proc print
    	movw	R1, 4(FP)	// Store the argument value in R1
    loop:	movb	R2, (R1)	// Store the byte addressed by R1 in R2
    	jeq	done		// If the byte was a zero, jump to 'done'
    	movb	(ttydata),R2	// Store the byte in the tty data register
    	movb	(ttystatus),#1	// Write a 1 to the tty status register to output the byte
    	add	R1, #1		// Add 1 to the R1 register
    	jmp	loop		// Jump back to 'loop' to get the next byte.
    done:	ret
    .end

    msg:	.byte	"Hello World.\n", 0

Given the appropriate circuit, mircrocode and macrocode definitions, this program will print the message "Hello World." on a tty and halt by entering an infinite loop.

### 4.6 Gmac Input File Example

You can find a complete gmac input file here.