COPROCESSOR 8087

Er. AMIT MAHAJAN

 OVERVIEW OF COPROCESSOR
8087
• MICROPROCESSOR IS DEFINED AS CENTRAL PROCESSING
UNIT ON A SINGLE IC.
• ADDRESS BUS IS ONE THAT CARRIES THE ADDRESS OF THE
MEMORY LOCATION THAT THE CPU WANTS TO ACCESS.
• DATA BUS IS ONE THAT IS USED TO TRANSFER DATA
BETWEEN THE PROCESSOR ,MEMORY AND I/O DEVICES.
• CONTROL BUS IS ONE THAT IS USED TO CARRY THE
NECESSARY CONTROL SIGNALS BETWEEN THE
PROCESSOR, MEMORY AND I/O DEVICES.
• CO MEANS TOGETHER OR ASSOCIATE IN AN ACTIVITY
• COPROCESSOR IS A COMPUTER PROCESSOR USED TO
SUPPLEMENT THE FUNCTIONS OF THE PRIMARY
PROCESSOR(CPU)
• TWO OR MORE PROCESSORS CAN DIRECTLY SHARE THE
ADDRESS,DATA AND CONTROL BUSES.
• PROCESSORS WHICH CAN SHARE THE LOCAL BUSES ARE
REFERRED TO AS COPROCESSORS.
 SOME POINTS ABOUT 8087
• THIS WAS THE FIRST MATH COPROCESSOR FOR 16 BIT
PROCESSORS DESIGNED BY INTEL.
• I8231 WAS OLDER BUT DESIGNED FOR THE 8 BIT INTEL 8080.
• IT WAS BUILT TO BE PAIRED WITH THE INTEL 8088 AND 8086
MICROPROCESSORS.
• THIS COPROCESSOR INTRODUCED ABOUT 60 NEW INSTRUCTIONS
AVAILABLE TO THE PROCESSOR.
• REQUIREMENT OF 8087 COPROCESSOR:
• THE INSTRUCTION SET OF GENERAL PURPOSE PROCESSORS
SUCH AS 8086 IS NOT OPTIMIZED TO DO COMPLEX NUMERICAL
CALCULATIONS,CRT GRAPHICS MANIPULATIOS OR WORD
PROCESSING.
• ALSO THESE GENERAL PURPOSE PROCESSORS HAVE LIMITED
MATHEMATICAL PROCESSING CAPABILITY SUCH AS ADDITION,
SUBSTRACTION, MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION.
• THEY DO NOT EVALUATE TRIGNOMETRIC ,LOGARITHMIC AND
EXPONENTIAL FUNCTIONS.
• THESE FUNCTIONS CAN BE EVALUATED EITHER BY SOFTWARE
SUBROUTINES(SMALL PROGRAM FOR A PARTICULAR TASK) OR
BY IN CORPORATING ADDITIONAL HARDWARE CIRCUITRY IN
THE COMPUTER SYSTEM.
 ALSO IN MANY MICROCOMPUTER PROGRAMS SUCH AS
THOSE USED FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, ENGINEERING
ETC WE OFTEN REQUIRE TO CALCULATE THE TANGENT,
LOG OF A NUMBER. ALSO SOMETIMES IT IS REQUIRED TO
DO ARITHEMETIC OPERATIONS ON VERY LARGE
NUMBERS AND ON VERY SMALL NUMBERS. THERE ARE
SEVERAL WAYS TO DO THIS.
 SEVERAL WAYS ARE:
 FIRST WAY IS TO WRITE THE NUMBER CRUNCHING( THE
PROCESS OF CALCULATING NUMBERS ESPECIALLY WHEN
LARGE AMOUNT OF DATA IS INVOLVED AND THE DATA IS
TO BE PROCESSED IN A SHORT SPACE OF TIME) PART OF
THE PROGRAM IN A HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE SUCH AS
FORTRAN,COMPILE THIS PART OF THE PROGRAM AND
LINK IN I/O MODULES WRITTEN IN ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE.
 BUT THE PROBLEM WITH THIS APPROACH IS THAT THE
PROGRAMS WRITTEN IN HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGES TEND
TO RUN CONSIDERABLY SLOWER THAN THE PROGRAMS
WRITTEN IN THE ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE.
 ALSO ANOTHER APPROACH IS TO BUY A LIBRARY OF
FLOATING POINT ARITHMETIC OBJECT MODULES FROM
THE MANUFACTURER OF THE PROCESSOR. THEN IN THE
PROGRAM YOU JUST DECLARE THE PROCEDURE NEEDED
FROM THE LIBRARY AS EXTERNAL , CALL THE
PROCEDURE AS REQUIRED AND LINK THE LIBRARY TO
THE OBJECT CODE OF THE PROGRAM. THIS APPROACH
SAVES THE LABOUR OF WRITING ALL THE PROCEDURES.
 BUT WHERE CALCULATIONS NEED TO BE DONE AS
QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE THEN ALL THESE APPROACHES
DON’T WORK .
 TO SOLVE THE ABOVE STATED PROBLEM WE NEED
SPECIAL PROCESSORS WHICH HAVE ARCHITECTURE AND
INSTRUCTION SET OPTIMIZED FOR NUMBER
CRUNCHING AND THIS IS WHERE WE NEED
COPROCESSORS.
 8087 IS USED IN PARALLEL WITH THE MAIN PROCESSOR
IN THE SYSTEM ,RATHER THAN SERVING AS A MAIN
PROCESSOR ITSELF SO THE NAME IS COPROCESSOR.
 THE MAJOR PRINCIPLE HERE IS THAT THE MAIN
PROCESSOR ,8086,HANDLES THE GENERAL PROGRAM
EXECUTION AND THE 8087 COPROCESSORHANDLES THE
SPECIALIZED MATHEMATICAL COMPUTATIONS
• TO DIFFERENTIATE THE INSTRUCTIONS USED FOR 8087 HERE ALL
THE MNEMONICS BEGINS WITH “F”. FOR EXAMPLE ,IN CONTRAST
TO ADD/MUL ,IN 8087 THERE IS FADD/FMUL.
• THIS MATH COPROCESSOR CAN BE INCORPORATEDIN A
COMPUTER SYSTEM EITHER AS AN I/O DEVICE OR AS AN
EXTENSION TO THE CPU.
• IF IT IS CONNECTED AS AN I/O DEVICE IT IS CALLED AS
PERIPHERAL MATH PROCESSOR.
• A PERIPHERAL PROCESSOR CAN BE USED WITH ANY HOST CPU
WHEREAS A COPROCESSOR IS DESIGNED FOR A PARTICULAR
FAMILY OF CPU’S.
• EXAMPLES OF MATH COPROCESSORS ARE 8087,80287,80387 ETC
• THE MATH COPROCESSOR IS ALSO CALLED F.P.U(FLOATING POINT
UNIT).
• THE 486,PENTIUM,PENTIUM PRO,PENTIUM II ETC CONTAIN THE FPU
WITHIN THE MICROPROCESSOR CHIP.
• FEATURES OF 8087:
• IT CAN PROCESS 16,32,64 BIT INTEGERS; 32,64,80 FLOATING POINT;
18 DIGIT BCD OPERANDS. IT HAS THE CAPABILITY TO CONTROL
THE ROUND OFF,UNDERFLOW,OVERFLOW ERRORS IN THE
CALCULATIONS.
• THE ARITHEMETIC ,EXPONENTIAL TRIGNOMETRIC ETC
FUNCTIONS ARE EVALUATED BY BUILT IN HARDWARE CIRCUIT.
 CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS
 IT CONTAINS EIGHT 80 BIT DATA REGISTERS.
 IN ADDITION TO THESE DATA REGISTERS IT ALSO
CONTAINS SOME 16 BIT SPECIAL PURPOSE REGISTERS
SUCH AS STATUS REGISTER,CONTROL REGISTER,TAG
WORD,INSTRUCTION POINTER AND DATA POINTER.
 INTERNAL ARCHITECTURE OF 8087
CONTROL WORD FORMAT
STATUS WORD FORMAT
EXPLANATION OF CONTROL WORD
AND STATUS WORD REGISTER
 BOTH ARE OF 16 BIT.
 CONTROL WORD REGISTER:
 0 BIT IS FOR INVALID OPERATION
 1 BIT IS FOR DENORMALIZED OPERAND
 2 BIT FOR ZERO DIVIDE
 3 BIT FOR OVERFLOW
 4 BIT FOR UNDERFLOW
 5 BIT FOR PRECISION
 NEXT BIT IS RESERVED
 7 BIT FOR INTERRUPT ENABLE MASK
 NEXT TWO BITS ARE FOR PRECISION CONTROL
 NEXT TWO FOR ROUNDING CONTROL
 NEXT TWO FOR INFINITY CONTROL
 AND THE LAST THREE ARE RESERVED
STATUS WORD FORMAT
 1 TO 6 BIT ARE SAME HERE
 NEXT IS FOR INTERRUPT REQUEST
 8,9,10,14 BIT ARE CONDITION CODE
 11,12,13 FOR STACK TOP POINTER
 15 FOR BUSY.
 THE VALUES OF STACK TOP POINTER:
 000 REGISTER 0 IS STACK TOP
 SIMILARILY FOR REST i.e. 001,……………..111
 TO HOLD NUMBERS BEING WORKED ON , THE 8087 HAS A
REGISTER STACK OF EIGHT ,80 BIT REGISTERS LABELED(0)
TO (7)
 THESE REGISTERS ARE USED AS A LAST IN FIRST OUT
STACK IN THE SAME WAY THE 8086 USES THE STACK
 THERE IS A 3 BIT STACK POINTER WHICH HOLDS THE
NUMBER OF THE REGISTER WHICH IS THE CURRENT TOP
OF THE STACK.
 WHEN THE 8087 IS INITIALIZED , THE 2 BIT STACK POINTER
IN THE 808 IS LOADED WITH 000, SO REGISTER 0 IS THE TOP
OF THE STACK.
 ONE POINT TO NOTE IS THAT IN THE 8087 INSTRUCTIONS
THE REGISTER THAT IS CURRENTLY THE TOS IS REFERRED
TO AS ST(0) OR SIMPLY ST. THE REGISTER JUST BELOW
THIS IN THE STACK IS REFERRED TO AS ST(1).
 NOW LET US PUSH THREE NUMBERS ON THE STACK
AFTER INITIALIZING, THEN THE REGISTER 101 IS TOS SO IT
WILL BE REFERRED TO AS ST(0),110 AS ST(1),111 AS ST(2).
How coprocessor works
 The 8087 is a numeric data processor(NDP). It is basically made to
work with 8086/8088 processors. It cannot fetch its instruction by own
so its buses(address and data buses)are simply connected to the
respective buses of the processor.Its instruction are recognized by the
word F because each and every instruction of this coprocessor starts with
the word F.this is how the main processor distinguishes between its own
and the coprocessor instructions.(e.g.):-FADD,FSUB,etc.this coprocessor
has 8-registers eacch capable of storing 80-bit temporary real numbers.
 the BUSY pin of the coprocessor is connected to the main processor's
TEST pin. This TEST pin is active low in nature. This is because the
speed of operation of the coprocessor and the main processor is different.
 The coprocessor is initialized by loading it with the control word which
gives the idea to the 8087 that which exceptions are to be ignored.
Usually after the calculations the status word of the coprocessor is loaded
to see which errors have occurred.