8051 Microcontroller

Dr. Anju Thomas

SENSE
VIT Vellore
Comparison of 8051 family members
 8051
• It having four register banks
• 4K bytes on-chip programmable memory (ROM)
• 128 bytes on-chip data memory (RAM)
• Address bus is 16-bit unidirectional
• Data bus is 8-bit bidirectional
• 128 user defined flags
• 16 bit timers (2)
• 32 general purpose registers each of 8-bit
• An on chip crystal oscillator is integrated in the microcontroller having
crystal frequency of 12 MHz.
• 8051 microcontroller offers a number of special features such as ADC,
UARTs, Op-amp, etc.
 Application of 8051 Microcontroller

• Energy Management : In energy management system the measuring

device is used for calculating the energy consumption in industrialized
and domestic applications. These systems are manufactured by
integrating the microcontrollers inside their architecture configuration.
• Automobiles : Microcontroller 8051 is to be used for providing
automobile solutions. They are largely be used in hybrid motor vehicles
to control engine variations.
• Touch screens: The advanced degree of microcontroller integrate the
touch sensing ability within their design .Transportable devices such as
cell phones, media players and gaming devices are some example of
microcontroller integrated with touch screens.
• Medical Devices: Microcontroller is used in various medical devices
such as glucose and blood pressure measurement machine for
monitoring and measuring the exact result in real-time computational
environment.
Application of 8051 Microcontroller
Harvard Architecture-Used in
Microcontrollers
8051 block diagram –Architecture
The following are the features supported by 8051:
• 8 bit microcontroller supporting 8 bit operations.
• Much general purpose and few special function registers.
– 2 major 8 bit registers for arithmetical and other operations, A and B.
A is accum and is bit addressable.
– 21 special function registers, SFRs. They do lot of dedicated functions
which life of programmers very easy.
– Few registers are bit addressable and few are not.
– Control registers for timer, serial communication and interrupts will
fall under S category.
• 4 register banks with having 8 registers in each bank.
– 4*8=32 registers can be used by the programmers. (Stack finds a slot
there.)
– Stack pointer register —Points to the stack and it is an 8 bit register.
• Data pointer, which is so called a 16 bit register, but it is a
combination of two 8 b registers, DPH and DPL.
• 16 bit program counter and no address for the same is allotted.
– Program counter is a helper for the controller. It holds the address of
the n instruction to be executed. •
• 8 bit program status word (PSW)
– It is the flag register and it helps in selection of register banks as well.
‘
• Internal ROM or EPROM
– Normally comes out with 4 K ROM.
• Internal user accessible RAM area of 128 bytes.
• 40 Pins package.
• 4 ports, P0, P1, P2 and P3 and they can be configured as input or
output ports.
• Two 16 bit timer/counters: TO and T1
• Full duplex serial data receiver/transmitter: SBUF
• Support for interrupt programming.
• Oscillator and clock circuits.
• Easier and simpler instruction set.
Pin diagram - 8051
Registers in 8051
Types of Registers in 8051
• The 8051 microcontroller consists of 256 bytes of RAM, which
is divided into two ways, such as 128 bytes for general
purpose and 128 bytes for special function registers (SFR)
memory.
• The memory which is used for general purpose is called as
RAM.
• The 8051 Microcontroller Special Function Registers are used
to program and control different hardware peripherals like
Timers, Serial Port, I/O Ports etc.
General Purpose Registers
• The general-purpose memory is called as the RAM of the 8051
microcontrollers
• which is divided into 3 areas such as banks(RB0-RB3),bit-
addressable area, and scratch-pad area.
• The banks contain different general-purpose registers such as R0-
R7, and all such registers are byte-addressable registers that store
or remove only 1-byte of data.
1. Register banks
• The B0, B1, B2, and B3 stand for banks, and each bank contains
eight general-purpose registers ranging from ‘R0’ to ‘R7’.
• All these registers are byte-addressable.
• Data transfer between general-purpose registers to general-
purpose registers is not possible.
• These banks are selected by the Program Status Word (PSW)
register.
 Bit addressable area

• Forming a total of 128 addressable bits (i.e., 16-byte location x 8 bits). Each bit can
be accessed by its bit addresses from OOH to 7FH.

• SETB OOH; Will store a "1" on the

LSB of location 20H.
(sets the bit operand to a value of 1.)
• CLR 07H; Will store a "0" on the
MSB of location 20H.
• Normal "BYTE" operations can also
be performed at the addresses: 20H
to 2FH.
• MOV 20H, # OOH; Will store a "0"
on all 8-bits of location 20H.
 Special Function Registers (SFRs)

• In Internal RAM Structure, the Address Space from 80H to FFH is

allocated to SFRs.
• Out of these 128 Memory Locations (80H to FFH), there are only 21
locations that are actually assigned to SFRs. Each SFR has one Byte
Address and also a unique name which specifies its purpose.
• Since the SFRs are a part of the Internal RAM Structure, you can
access SFRs as if you access the Internal RAM. The main difference
is the address space: first 128 Bytes (00H to 7FH) is for regular
Internal RAM and next 128 Bytes (80H to FFH) is for SFRs.

As only 21 of the possible 128 SFR memory locations are assigned, it is

recommended that the remaining registers or memory locations are not
accessed during programming.
 List of 8051 Microcontroller Special Function
Registers
• PCON
• A or ACC
• PSW
• B
• SCON
• DPL
• SBUF
• DPH
• SP
• IE
• TMOD
• IP
• TCON
• P0
• TL0
• P1
• TH0
• P2
• TL1
• P3
• TH1
• Math or CPU Registers: A and B
• Status Register: PSW (Program Status Word)
• Pointer Registers: DPTR (Data Pointer – DPL, DPH) and SP (Stack
Pointer)
• I/O Port Latches: P0 (Port 0), P1 (Port 1), P2 (Port 2) and P3 (Port 3)
• Peripheral Control Registers: PCON, SCON, TCON, TMOD, IE and IP
• Peripheral Data Registers: TL0, TH0, TL1, TH1 and SBUF
Special Function Registers (SFR)
 A or Accumulator (ACC)
• The Accumulator or Register A is the most important and most used
8051 Microcontroller SFRs.
• The Register A is located at the address E0H in the SFR memory
space.
• The Accumulator is used to hold the data for almost all the ALU
Operations.
• Some of the operations where the Accumulator is used are:
– Arithmetic Operations like Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication etc.
– Logical Operations like AND, OR, NOT etc.
– Data Transfer Operations (between 8051 and External Memory)
 B (Register B)
• The B Register is used along with the ACC in Multiplication and
Division operations.
• These two operations are performed on data that are stored only in
Registers A and B.
– During Multiplication Operation, one of the operand (multiplier or
multiplicand) is stores in B Register and also the higher byte of the
result.
– In case of Division Operation, the B Register holds the divisor and
also the remainder of the result.
• It can also be used as a General Purpose Register for normal
operations and is often used as an Auxiliary Register by Programmers
to store temporary results.
• Register B is located at the address F0H of the SFR Address Space
 Program Status Word (PSW)
• The PSW or Program Status Word Register is also called as Flag
Register and is one of the important SFRs.
• The flag bits are used to indicate the arithmetic condition of the A
Register
• Flags are 1-bit storage elements that store and indicate the nature
of the result that is generated by execution of certain instructions.
If the A register contains odd number of 1's, then P = 1; and for an even number of 1's, P = 0
Carry Flag (C):
• This carry flag is affected when the bit is generated from the 7th position.
• When C=0 carry resets, C=1 carry sets

Auxillary Flag(AC):
• This auxiliary carry is affected when a bit is generated from the 3rd position to the
4th position.
• AC=0 auxiliary is reset, AC=1 auxiliary is set
Overflow Flag (OV):
• This flag is set whenever the result of a signed number operation is too large,
causing the high-order bit to overflow into the sign bit. In general, The overflow
flag is only used to detect errors in signed arithmetic operations.
• This flag is set whenever there is a carry out of bit 6 or out of bit 7, but not both.
• OV=0 overflow flag resets, OV=1 overflow flag sets
 Instructions that affects flag bits

• DA- Decimal Adjust Accumulator

• RRC- Rotate Accumulator Right Through Carry
• RLC- Rotate Accumulator Left Through Carry
• ANL C- Bitwise AND
• ORL- Bitwise OR
• CJNE - Compare and Jump if Not Equal
 Data Pointer (DPTR – DPL and DPH)
• The Data Pointer is a 16-bit Register and is physically the
combination of DPL (Data Pointer Low) and DPH (Data Pointer High)
SFRs.
• The Data Pointer can be used as a single 16-bit register (as DPTR) or
two 8-bit registers (as DPL and DPH).
• DPTR doesn’t have a physical Memory Address but the DPL (Lower
Byte of DPTR) and DPH (Higher Byte of DPTR) have separate
addresses in the SFR Memory Space. DPL = 82H and DPH = 83H.
• The DPTR Register is used by the programmer addressing external
memory (Program – ROM or Data – RAM).
 Stack Pointer (SP)
• SP or Stack Pointer points out to the top of the Stack and it
indicates the next data to be accessed. LIFO
• Stack Pointer can be accesses using PUSH, POP, CALL and RET
Instructions.
• The Stack Pointer is an 8-bit register and upon reset, the Stack
Pointer is initialized with 07H.
– When writing a new data byte into the stack, the SP (Stack
Pointer) is automatically incremented by 1 and the new data is
written at an address SP+1. When reading data from stack, the
data is retrieved from the Address in SP and after that the SP is
decremented by 1 (SP-1).
Pushing onto the Stack
Popping from the Stack
 The upper limit of the stack

• The locations 08 to IF (RB1-RB3) in the 8051 RAM can be used for the
stack.
• This is because locations 20 – 2FH of RAM are reserved for bit-addressable
memory and must not be used by the stack.
• If in a given program we need more than 24 bytes (08 to 1FH = 24 bytes) of
stack, we can change the SP to point to RAM locations 30 – 7FH.
• This is done with the instruction

MOV SP, #xx

 CALL instruction and the stack

• In addition to using the stack to save registers, the CPU also

uses the stack to save the address of the instruction just
below the CALL instruction.
• This is how the CPU knows where to resume when it returns
from the called subroutine.
 Stack and bank 1 conflict

• As data is pushed onto the stack, SP is incremented and it is decremented as

data is popped off the stack into the registers.
• Access up to 7FH
• Not affect R0-R7 in RB0
• The register bank 1 and the stack are using the same memory space.
• We can reallocate another section of RAM to the stack.
 I/O Port Registers (P0, P1, P2 and P3)
• The 8051 Microcontroller four Ports which can be used as Input
and/or Output.
• These four ports are P0, P1, P2 and P3. Each Port has a
corresponding register with same names (the Port Registers are
also P0, P1, P2 and P3).
• The addresses of the Port Registers are as follows: P0 – 80H, P1 –
90H, P2 – A0H and P2 – B0H.
– Each bit in these SFRs corresponds to one physical Pin in the 8051
Microcontroller.
– All these Port Registers are both Bit Addressable and Byte
Addressable.
– Writing 1 or 0 on a Port Register Bit will reflect as an appropriate
voltage (5V and 0V) on the corresponding Pin.
• If a Port Bit is SET (declared as 1), the corresponding Port Pin will
be configured as Input and similarly if a Port Bit is CLEARED
(declared as 0), the corresponding Port Pin is configured as Output.
• Upon reset, all the Port Bits are SET (1) and hence, all the Port Pins
are configured as Inputs.
 PCON (Power Control)
• It is used to control the 8051 Microcontroller’s Power Modes and is
located at 87H of the SFR Memory Space.
• Using two bits in the PCON Register, the microcontroller can be set to
Idle Mode and Power Down Mode.
• PCON register is not bit addressable.
• During Idle Mode, the Microcontroller will stop the Clock Signal to
the ALU (CPU) but it is given to other peripherals like Timer, Serial,
Interrupts, etc.
• In order to terminate the Idle Mode, you have to use an Interrupt or
Hardware Reset.
• In the Power Down Mode, the oscillator will be stopped and the
power will be reduced to 2V. To terminate the Power Down Mode,
you have to use the Hardware Reset.
• There are two general purpose Flag Bits in the PCON Register, which
can be used by the programmer during execution.
 SCON (Serial Control)

• It is located as an address of 98H.

• SCON Register also consists of bits that are automatically SET when
a byte of data is transmitted or received.
 SBUF (Serial Data Buffer)

• The Serial Buffer or SBUF register is used to hold the serial data
while transmission or reception.
 TCON (Timer Control)
• It is used to start or stop the Timers of 8051 Microcontroller.
• It also contains bits to indicate if the Timers has overflowed.
• The TCON SFR also consists of Interrupt related bits.
 TMOD (Timer Mode)
• The lower four bits are used to configure Timer0 and the higher
four bits are used to configure Timer1.
 TL0/TH0 (Timer 0 Low/High)
• The Timer 0 consists of two SFRs: TL0 and TH0. The TL0 is the lower
byte and the TH0 is the higher byte and together they form a 16-bit
Timer0 Register.
 TL1/TH1 (Timer 1 Low/High)
• The TL1 and TH1 are the lower and higher bytes of the Timer 0.
 IE (Interrupt Enable)

• The IE or Interrupt Enable Register is used to enable or disable

individual interrupts.
• If a bit is SET, the corresponding interrupt is enabled and if the bit is
cleared, the interrupt is disabled.
 IP (Interrupt Priority)

• Interrupt Priority Register is used to set the priority of the interrupt

as High or Low.
• If a bit is CLEARED, the corresponding interrupt is assigned low
priority and if the bit is SET, the interrupt is assigned high priority.
Internal Memory in 8051