Description
The purpose of this exercise is to investigate the use of devices that provide input and output capabilities for a
processor. There are two basic techniques for dealing with I/O devices: program-controlled polling and interruptdriven approaches. You will use the polling approach in this exercise, writing programs in the ARM* assembly
language. Your programs will be executed on the ARM processor in the DE1-SoC Computer system. Parallel port
interfaces, as well as a timer module, will be used as examples of I/O hardware.
A parallel port provides for data transfer in either the input or output direction. The transfer of data is done in
parallel and it may involve from 1 to 32 bits. The number of bits, n, and the type of transfer depend on the
specifications of the specific parallel port being used. The parallel port interface can contain the four registers
shown in Figure 1.
(n-1) 0
Input/Output data
(a) Data register
(b) Direction register
Direction control for each input/output line
Interrupt enable/disable control for each input line
(c) Interrupt-mask register
(d) Edge-capture register
Edge detection for each input line
Address offset
(in bytes)
0
4
8
12
Figure 1: Registers in the parallel port interface.
Each register is n bits long. The registers have the following purpose:
• Data register: holds the n bits of data that are transferred between the parallel port and the ARM processor.
It can be implemented as an input, output, or a bidirectional register.
• Direction register: defines the direction of transfer for each of the n data bits when a bidirectional interface
is generated.
• Interrupt-mask register: used to enable interrupts from the input lines connected to the parallel port.
• Edge-capture register: indicates when a change of logic value is detected in the signals on the input lines
connected to the parallel port. Once a bit in the edge capture register becomes asserted, it will remain
asserted. An edge-capture bit can be de-asserted by writing to it using the ARM processor.
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Not all of these registers are present in some parallel ports. For example, the Direction register is included only
when a bidirectional interface is specified. The Interrupt-mask and Edge-capture registers must be included if
interrupt-driven input/output is used.
The parallel port registers are memory mapped, starting at a specific base address. The base address becomes the
address of the Data register in the parallel port. The addresses of the other three registers have offsets of 4, 8, or
12 bytes (1, 2, or 3 words) from this base address. In the DE1-SoC Computer parallel ports are used to connect to
SW slide switches, KEY pushbuttons, LEDs, and seven-segment displays.
Part I
Write an ARM assembly language program that displays a decimal digit on the seven-segment display HEX0.
The other seven-segment displays HEX5 − 1 should be blank.
The DE1-SoC Computer contains a parallel port connected to the seven-segment displays HEX3 − 0. The port is
memory mapped at the base address 0xFF200020. A second parallel port is connected to HEX5 − 4, at the base
address 0xFF200030. Figure 2 shows how the display segments are connected to the parallel ports. 0xFF200020
…
HEX06-0
…
HEX16-0
…
HEX36-0
Address
31 30 24 15 14 8 7 6 0
0xFF200030
…
HEX26-0
23 22 16
…
HEX46-0
…
HEX56-0
31 30 16 24 23 22 15 14 8 7 6 0
Data register
Data register
0
1
2
3
4
5 6
Segments
Unused
Figure 2: The parallel ports connected to the seven-segment displays HEX5 − 0.
Perform the following:
1. If KEY0 is pressed on the board, you should set the number displayed on HEX0 to 0. If KEY1 is pressed
then increment the displayed number, and if KEY2 is pressed then decrement the number. Pressing KEY3
should blank the display, and pressing any other KEY after that should return the display to 0. The parallel
port connected to the pushbutton KEYs has the base address 0xFF200050, as illustrated in Figure 3. In
your program, use polled I/O to read the Data register to see when a button is being pressed. When you are
not pressing any KEY the Data register provides 0, and when you press KEYi
the Data register provides the
value 1 in bit position i. Once a button-press is detected, be sure that your program waits until the button is
released. You should not use the Interruptmask or Edgecapture registers for this part of the exercise.
2. Create a new folder to hold your solution for this part. Create a file called part1.s and type your assembly
language code into this file. You may want to refer to discussions, and examples of assembly-language code,
about displaying numbers on seven-segment displays in previous lab exercises.
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Address 31 30 . . . 4 3 2 1 0
0xFF200050
0xFF200058
0xFF20005C
Unused
KEY3-0
Edge bits
Mask bits
Unused
Unused
Unused
Data register
Interruptmask register
Edgecapture register
Unused
Figure 3: The parallel port connected to the pushbutton KEYs.
3. Make a new Monitor Program project in the folder where you stored the part1.s file.
4. Compile, download, and test your program.
Part II
Write an ARM assembly language program that displays a two-digit decimal counter on the seven-segment displays HEX1−0. The counter should be incremented approximately every 0.25 seconds. When the counter reaches
the value 99, it should start again at 0. The counter should stop/start when any pushbutton KEY is pressed.
To achieve a delay of approximately 0.25 seconds, use a delay-loop in your assembly language code. A suitable
example of such a loop is shown below.
DO_DELAY: LDR R7, =200000000 // delay counter
SUB_LOOP: SUBS R7, R7, #1
BNE SUB_LOOP
To avoid “missing” any button presses while the processor is executing the delay loop, you should use the Edgecapture register in the KEY port, shown in Figure 3. When a pushbutton is pressed, the corresponding bit in the
Edgecapture register is set to 1; it remains set until your program resets it back to 0. You reset an Edgecapture bit
by writing a 1 into the corresponding position of the register.
Perform the following:
1. Create a new folder to hold your solution for this part. Create a file called part2.s and type your assembly
language code into this file.
2. Make a new Monitor Program project in the folder where you stored the part2.s file.
3. Compile, download, and test your program.
Part III
In Part II you used a delay loop to cause the ARM processor to wait for approximately 0.25 seconds. The processor loaded a large value into a register before the loop, and then decremented that value until it reached 0. In this
part you are to modify your code so that a hardware timer is used to measure an exact delay of 0.25 seconds. You
should use polled I/O to cause the ARM processor to wait for the timer.
The DE1-SoC Computer includes a number of hardware timers. For this exercise use the timer called the ARM
A9 Private Timer. As shown in Figure 4 this timer has four registers, starting at the base address 0xFFFEC600.
To use the timer you need to write a suitable value into the Load register. Then, you need to set the enable bit E in
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the Control register to 1, to start the timer. The timer starts counting from the initial value in the Load register and
counts down to 0 at a frequency of 200 MHz. The counter will automatically reload the value in the Load register
and continue counting if the A bit in the Control register is set to 1. When it reaches 0, the timer sets the F bit in
the Interrupt status register to 1. You should poll this bit in your program to cause the ARM processor to wait for
the timer. To reset the F bit to 0 you have to write the value 1 into this bit-position.
I A E
F
Address 31 . . . 15 0 . . . 16 2 1
0xFFFEC600 Load value
0xFFFEC604 Current value
0xFFFEC608 Unused
0xFFFEC60C Unused
7
Control
Interrupt status
Prescaler
8
Counter
Load
Unused
3 Register name
Figure 4: The ARM A9 Private Timer registers.
Perform the following:
1. Make a new folder to hold your solution for this part. Create a file called part3.s and type your assembly
language code into this file.
2. Make a new Monitor Program project for this part of the exercise, and then compile, download, and test
your program.
Part IV
In this part you are to write an assembly language program that implements a real-time clock. Display the time
on the seven-segment displays HEX3 − 0 in the format SS:DD, where SS are seconds and DD are hundredths of
a second. Measure time intervals of 0.01 seconds in your program by using polled I/O with the ARM A9 Private
Timer. You should be able to stop/run the clock by pressing any pushbutton KEY. When the clock reaches 59:99,
it should wrap around to 00:00.
Perform the following:
1. Make a new folder to hold your solution for this part. Create a file called part4.s and type your code into
this file.
2. Make a new Monitor Program project for this part of the exercise, and then compile, download, and test
your program.
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