Register Set of 8085

The Intel 8085 has six general-purpose registers to store 8-bit data and these registers are

identified as B, C, D, E, H and L. When two registers are combined, 16-bit data can be stored

in a register pair. The only possible combinations of register pairs are BC, DE and HL. These

register pairs are used to perform 16-bit operations. There is an accumulator register and

one flag register. The accumulator is an 8-bit register. Arithmetic and logical operations are

performed in the accumulator and after operation; the result will be stored in the

accumulator. In addition with the above registers, there are two 16-bit registers, namely,

the Stack Pointer (SP) and Program Counter (PC).

The registers are listed as follows:

● One 8-bit accumulator (ACC) known as register A

● Six 8-bit general-purpose registers: B, C, D, E, H and L

● One 16-bit Stack Pointer (SP)

● One 16-bit Program Counter (PC)

● Instruction register

● Temporary register

● Program Status Word (PSW) Register

Accumulator:

The accumulator is an 8-bit register, which is part of the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU). This is

identified as register A or ACC. It is used to store 8-bit data and to perform arithmetic as

well as logic operations. The final result of an operation performed in the ALU is also stored

in the accumulator.

General-purpose registers:

The general-purpose registers of the 8085 microprocessor are B, C, D, E, H and L registers as

shown in the figure. These registers are used to store 8-bit operands. To hold a 16-bit data

or 16-bit memory address location, two 8-bit registers can be combined. The combination of

two 8-bit registers is known as a register pair. The only possible combination register pairs

of the 8085 microprocessor are B-C, D-E and H-L. The programmer cannot form a register

pair by selecting any two registers of his choice. The H-L register pair can be used as the

address of memory location whereas B-C and D-E register pairs are used to store 16-bit

data. During the execution of the program, all general-purpose registers can be accessed by

program instructions and also used for data manipulation.

Special-purpose registers:

In addition to the above general-purpose registers, the 8085 microprocessor has

special-purpose registers, namely, Program Counter (PC), Stack Pointer (SP), Flags/Status

Registers (SR), Instruction Register (IR), Memory Address Register (MAR), Temporary

Register (TR), and Memory Buffer Register (MBR).

Program Counter (PC)

The program counter is a 16-bit special-purpose register. This is used to hold the memory

address of the next instruction which will be executed. Actually, this register keeps track of

memory locations of the instructions during execution of program. The microprocessor uses

this register to execute instructions in sequence. For this, the microprocessor increments

the content of the program counter.

Stack Pointer (SP)

The stack pointer is a 16-bit register, which is used to point the memory location called the

stack. The stack is a sequence of memory locations in the R/W memory. The starting of the

stack is defined by loading a 16-bit address into the stack pointer. Generally, the

programmers use this register to store and retrieve the contents of the accumulator, flags,

program counter as well as general-purpose registers during the execution of a program.

Flags/Status Registers (SR)

The Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) includes five flip-flops, which are set or reset after an ALU

operation according to data conditions of the result in the accumulator and other

general-purpose registers. The status of each flip-flop is known as a flag. Therefore, there

are five flags, namely, Carry flag (CY), Parity flag (P), Auxiliary Carry flag (AC), Zero flag (Z),

and Sign (S) flags. The most commonly used flags are Carry(CY), Zero(Z) and Sign(S).

Generally, the microprocessor uses these flags to test data conditions.

For example, after addition of two 8-bit numbers, if the sum in the accumulator is larger

than eight bits, the flip-flop, which is used to indicate a carry, is set to one. So the Carry flag

(CY) is set to1. If the result is zero after any arithmetic operation, the Zero (Z) flag is set to

one.
Below figure shows an 8-bit register, which indicates bit positions of different flags. This

register is known as flag register and it is adjacent to the accumulator. Though it is an

eight-bit register, only five bit positions out of eight are used to store the outputs of the five

flip-flops. The flags are stored in the 8-bit register so that the programmer can check these

flags through an instruction. These flags are used in the decision-making process of the

microprocessor.

Carry Flag (CY): The arithmetic operation generates a carry in case of addition or a borrow in

case of subtraction after execution of an arithmetic instruction and the carry flag is set to 1.

When the two 8-bit ​numbers are added and the sum is larger than 8 bits, a carry is produced

and the carry flag is set to 1. During subtraction, if borrow is generated, the carry flag is also

set to 1. The position of carry flag is D0 as depicted in above figure.

Parity Flag (P): After an arithmetic or logical operation, if the number of 1s in the result is

even (even parity), this parity status flag (P) is set, and if the number of 1s is odd (odd

parity), this flag is reset. For example, if the data byte is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1, the number of 1s in

the data byte is eight (even parity) and the parity flag (P) is set to 1.

Auxiliary Carry Flag (AC): In arithmetic operations of numbers, if a carry is generated by bit

D3 and passed on to D4, the auxiliary carry flag (AC) is set. Actually this flag is used for
internally Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) operations and this is not available for the

programmer to change the sequence of operations through jump instructions.

Zeor Flag (Z): When an 8-bit ALU operation results in zero, the Zero (Z) flag is set; otherwise

it is reset. This flag is affected by the results of the accumulator and general-purpose

registers.

Sign Flag (S): The sign flag has its importance only when a signed arithmetic operation is

performed. In arithmetic operations of signed numbers where the bit D7 is used to indicate

a sign, this flag is set to indicate the sign of a number.

The most significant bit of an 8-bit data is the sign bit. When a number is negative, the sign

bit is 1. If the number is positive, the sign bit is 0. For an 8-bit signed operation, the

remaining 7 bits are used to represent the magnitude of a number. After execution of a

signed arithmetic operation, the MSB of the result also represents its sign.

Program Status Word (PSW): In a flag register five bits (D7 D6 D4 D2 D0) indicate the five

status flags and three bits D5 D3 and D1 are undefined. The combination of these 8 bits is

known as Program Status Word (PSW). The PSW and the accumulator can be used as a

16-bit unit for stack operation.

Instruction Register (IR)

The instruction register holds the operation code (opcode) of the current instruction of a

program during an arithmetic/logical operation. The instruction is fetched from the memory

prior to execution. The decoder takes the instruction and decodes it. After that, the

decoded instruction is passed to the next stage for execution.

Memory Address Register (MAR)

The Memory Address Register holds the address of the next program instruction. Then MAR

feeds the address bus with addresses of the memory location of the program instruction

which will be executed.

Temporary Register (TR)

This is an 8-bit register, which is associated with ALU. This register holds data during

arithmetic and logical operation. This register can be used by the microprocessor but is not

accessible to the programmer.