The flag circuitry
The diagram below shows the flag circuit of the chip as it appears in the
simulator; this is a zoomed-in version of the red rectangle indicated on the die earlier.
The chip consists of multiple layers, indicated by different colors below. Transistors appear as red or blue regions. NMOS transistors are red; they turn on with a 1 input and can pull their output low. PMOS transistors (blue) are complementary; they turn on with a 0 input and can pull their output high.
Physically above the transistors is the polysilicon wiring layer (green). When polysilicon crosses a transistor it forms the gate (yellow) that controls the transistor.
Finally, two layers of metal wiring (gray) are above the polysilicon.
The flag circuit in the ARM1 processor. The eight flags are at the bottom, with control circuitry above.
The flag circuit above has been partitioned into several components. At the bottom are the circuits to store the eight flags. In the upper left, the flag control circuitry generates signals that control flag use and updates.
The mode control circuit in the upper right generates the signals to update the mode bits M0 and M1.
Finally, the register control circuit uses the mode bits to select a register bank. At the bottom is the wiring that connects the B bus, ALU bus, and flag inputs to the flag circuits.
The remainder of this article will start by discussing a single flag, the N flag at the bottom. Next it will describe the condition flags (V, C, Z and N) in more detail, along with how the flag control circuit
(schematic)
creates the control signals. This will be followed by an explanation of the mode flags (M0, M1) and the interrupt flags (F, I) and their control signals.
The article ends with a discussion of the register bank select circuit.
