Microchip Technology DM183021 Data Sheet

 2010 Microchip Technology Inc.

DS39616D-page 75

The data memory space can be addressed in several
ways. For most instructions, the addressing mode is
fixed. Other instructions may use up to three modes,
depending on which operands are used and whether or
not the extended instruction set is enabled.
The addressing modes are:
• Inherent
• Literal
• Direct
• Indirect

6.7.1

INHERENT AND LITERAL 
ADDRESSING

Many PIC18 control instructions do not need any
argument at all. They either perform an operation that
globally affects the device or they operate implicitly on
one register. This addressing mode is known as Inherent
Addressing. Examples include SLEEP, RESET and DAW.
Other instructions work in a similar way but require an
additional explicit argument in the opcode. This is
known as Literal Addressing mode because they
require some literal value as an argument. Examples
include ADDLW and MOVLW, which respectively, add or
move a literal value to the W register. Other examples
include  CALL and GOTO, which include a 20-bit
program memory address.

6.7.2

DIRECT ADDRESSING

Direct Addressing specifies all or part of the source
and/or destination address of the operation within the
opcode itself. The options are specified by the
arguments accompanying the instruction.
In the core PIC18 instruction set, bit-oriented and byte-
oriented instructions use some version of Direct
Addressing by default. All of these instructions include
some 8-bit literal address as their Least Significant
Byte. This address specifies either a register address in
one of the banks of data RAM (

) or a location in the Access Bank

) as the data source for

the instruction. 
The Access RAM bit, ‘a’, determines how the address
is interpreted. When ‘a’ is ‘1’, the contents of the BSR
(

) are

used with the address to determine the complete 12-bit
address of the register. When ‘a’ is ‘0’, the address is
interpreted as being a register in the Access Bank.
Addressing that uses the Access RAM is sometimes
also known as Direct Forced Addressing mode.

A few instructions, such as MOVFF, include the entire
12-bit address (either source or destination) in their op
codes. In these cases, the BSR is ignored entirely.
The destination of the operation’s results is determined
by the destination bit, ‘d’. When ‘d’ is ‘1’, the results are
stored back in the source register, overwriting its origi-
nal contents. When ‘d’ is ‘0’, the results are stored in
the W register. Instructions without the ‘d’ argument
have a destination that is implicit in the instruction; their
destination is either the target register being operated
on or the W register.

6.7.3

INDIRECT ADDRESSING

Indirect Addressing allows the user to access a location
in data memory without giving a fixed address in the
instruction. This is done by using File Select Registers
(FSRs) as pointers to the locations to be read or written
to. Since the FSRs are themselves located in RAM as
Special Function Registers, they can also be directly
manipulated under program control. This makes FSRs
very useful in implementing data structures, such as
tables and arrays in data memory. 
The registers for Indirect Addressing are also
implemented with Indirect File Operands (INDFs) that
permit automatic manipulation of the pointer value with
auto-incrementing, auto-decrementing or offsetting
with another value. This allows for efficient code, using
loops, such as the example of clearing an entire RAM
bank in 

LFSR

FSR0, 100h ;   

NEXT 

CLRF

POSTINC0

; Clear INDF 

; register then 

; inc pointer 

BTFSS

FSR0H, 1

; All done with

; Bank1? 

BRA

NEXT

; NO, clear next 

CONTINUE

; YES, continue