Thumb Instruction SetΒΆ
Note
The THUMB Instruction Set is used throuought all assembly code examples and projects in this site.
The Thumb instruction set is a subset of the most commonly used 32-bit ARM instructions. Thumb instructions are each 16 bits long, and have a corresponding 32-bit ARM instruction that has the same effect on the processor model. Thumb instructions operate with the standard ARM register configuration, allowing excellent interoperability between ARM and Thumb states.
On execution, 16-bit Thumb instructions are transparently decompressed to full 32-bit ARM instructions in real time, without performance loss.
Thumb has all the advantages of a 32-bit core:
32-bit address space
32-bit registers
32-bit shifter, and Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
32-bit memory transfer.
Thumb therefore offers a long branch range, powerful arithmetic operations, and a large address space.
Thumb code is typically 65% of the size of ARM code, and provides 160% of the performance of ARM code when running from a 16-bit memory system. Thumb, therefore, makes the ARM7TDMI core ideally suited to embedded applications with restricted memory bandwidth, where code density and footprint is important.
The availability of both 16-bit Thumb and 32-bit ARM instruction sets gives designers the flexibility to emphasize performance or code size on a subroutine level, according to the requirements of their applications. For example, critical loops for applications such as fast interrupts and DSP algorithms can be coded using the full ARM instruction set then linked with Thumb code.
