Bit 0 of the value written to a word in the alias region determines the value written to the targeted
bit in the bit-band region. Writing a value with bit 0 set writes a 1 to the bit-band bit, and writing a
value with bit 0 clear writes a 0 to the bit-band bit.
Bits 31:1 of the alias word have no effect on the bit-band bit. Writing 0x01 has the same effect as
writing 0xFF. Writing 0x00 has the same effect as writing 0x0E.
When reading a word in the alias region, 0x0000.0000 indicates that the targeted bit in the bit-band
region is clear and 0x0000.0001 indicates that the targeted bit in the bit-band region is set.
2.4.5.2 Directly Accessing a Bit-Band Region
“Behavior of Memory Accesses” on page 76 describes the behavior of direct byte, halfword, or word
accesses to the bit-band regions.
2.4.6 Data Storage
The processor views memory as a linear collection of bytes numbered in ascending order from zero.
For example, bytes 0-3 hold the first stored word, and bytes 4-7 hold the second stored word. Data
is stored in little-endian format, with the least-significant byte (lsbyte) of a word stored at the
lowest-numbered byte, and the most-significant byte (msbyte) stored at the highest-numbered byte.
Figure 2-5 on page 80 illustrates how data is stored.
Figure 2-5. Data Storage
Memory Register
Address A
A+1
lsbyte
msbyte
A+2
A+3
07
B0B1B3 B2
31 2423 1615 8 7 0
B0
B1
B2
B3
2.4.7 Synchronization Primitives
The Cortex-M3 instruction set includes pairs of synchronization primitives which provide a
non-blocking mechanism that a thread or process can use to obtain exclusive access to a memory
location. Software can use these primitives to perform a guaranteed read-modify-write memory
update sequence or for a semaphore mechanism.
A pair of synchronization primitives consists of:
■ A Load-Exclusive instruction, which is used to read the value of a memory location and requests
exclusive access to that location.
■ A Store-Exclusive instruction, which is used to attempt to write to the same memory location and
returns a status bit to a register. If this status bit is clear, it indicates that the thread or process
gained exclusive access to the memory and the write succeeds; if this status bit is set, it indicates
that the thread or process did not gain exclusive access to the memory and no write was
performed.
The pairs of Load-Exclusive and Store-Exclusive instructions are:
July 24, 201280
Texas Instruments-Production Data
The Cortex-M3 Processor
OBSOLETE: TI has discontinued production of this device.