ATXMEGA384C3_14 Datasheet, PDF (10/125 Pages) ATMEL Corporation – 8/16-bit Atmel XMEGA C3 Microcontroller

During interrupts and subroutine calls, the return address PC is stored on the stack. The stack is allocated in the general
data SRAM, and consequently the stack size is only limited by the total SRAM size and the usage of the SRAM. After
reset, the stack pointer (SP) points to the highest address in the internal SRAM. The SP is read/write accessible in the
I/O memory space, enabling easy implementation of multiple stacks or stack areas. The data SRAM can easily be
accessed through the five different addressing modes supported in the AVR CPU.
6.6 Status Register
The status register (SREG) contains information about the result of the most recently executed arithmetic or logic
instruction. This information can be used for altering program flow in order to perform conditional operations. Note that
the status register is updated after all ALU operations, as specified in the instruction set reference. This will in many
cases remove the need for using the dedicated compare instructions, resulting in faster and more compact code.
The status register is not automatically stored when entering an interrupt routine nor restored when returning from an
interrupt. This must be handled by software.
The status register is accessible in the I/O memory space.
6.7 Stack and Stack Pointer
The stack is used for storing return addresses after interrupts and subroutine calls. It can also be used for storing
temporary data. The stack pointer (SP) register always points to the top of the stack. It is implemented as two 8-bit
registers that are accessible in the I/O memory space. Data are pushed and popped from the stack using the PUSH and
POP instructions. The stack grows from a higher memory location to a lower memory location. This implies that pushing
data onto the stack decreases the SP, and popping data off the stack increases the SP. The SP is automatically loaded
after reset, and the initial value is the highest address of the internal SRAM. If the SP is changed, it must be set to point
above address 0x2000, and it must be defined before any subroutine calls are executed or before interrupts are enabled.
During interrupts or subroutine calls, the return address is automatically pushed on the stack. The return address can be
two or three bytes, depending on program memory size of the device. For devices with 128KB or less of program
memory, the return address is two bytes, and hence the stack pointer is decremented/incremented by two. For devices
with more than 128KB of program memory, the return address is three bytes, and hence the SP is
decremented/incremented by three. The return address is popped off the stack when returning from interrupts using the
RETI instruction, and from subroutine calls using the RET instruction.
The SP is decremented by one when data are pushed on the stack with the PUSH instruction, and incremented by one
when data is popped off the stack using the POP instruction.
To prevent corruption when updating the stack pointer from software, a write to SPL will automatically disable interrupts
for up to four instructions or until the next I/O memory write.
After reset the stack pointer is initialized to the highest address of the SRAM. See Figure 7-2 on page 13.
6.8 Register File
The register file consists of 32 x 8-bit general purpose working registers with single clock cycle access time. The register
file supports the following input/output schemes:
 One 8-bit output operand and one 8-bit result input
 Two 8-bit output operands and one 8-bit result input
 Two 8-bit output operands and one 16-bit result input
 One 16-bit output operand and one 16-bit result input
Six of the 32 registers can be used as three 16-bit address register pointers for data space addressing, enabling efficient
address calculations. One of these address pointers can also be used as an address pointer for lookup tables in flash
program memory.
XMEGA C3 [DATASHEET]
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Atmel-8361F-AVR-ATxmega384C3-Datasheet–11/2014