Bus Cycle Types; Figure 3-1 Simple Memory Cycle - ARM ARM7TDMI Technical Reference Manual

Memory Interface
3.3

Bus cycle types

3-4
The ARM7TDMI processor bus interface is pipelined. This gives the maximum time for
a memory cycle to decode the address and respond to the access request:
• memory request signals are broadcast in the bus cycle ahead of the bus cycle to
which they refer
• address class signals are broadcast half a clock cycle ahead of the bus cycle to
which they refer.
A single memory cycle is shown in Figure 3-1.
MCLK
APE
nMREQ
SEQ
A[31:0]
D[31:0]
The ARM7TDMI processor bus interface can perform four different types of bus cycle:
• a nonsequential cycle requests a transfer to or from an address which is unrelated
to the address used in the preceding cycle
• a sequential cycle requests a transfer to or from an address which is either the
same, one word, or one halfword greater than the address used in the preceding
cycle
• an internal cycle does not require a transfer because it is performing an internal
function, and no useful prefetching can be performed at the same time
• a coprocessor register transfer cycle uses the data bus to communicate with a
coprocessor, but does not require any action by the memory system.
Copyright © 2001, 2004 ARM Limited. All rights reserved.

Figure 3-1 Simple memory cycle

ARM DDI 0210C