PM0056 Datasheet, PDF (39/156 Pages) STMicroelectronics – This programming manual provides information

PM0056
The Cortex-M3 processor
is referred as stacking and the structure of eight data words is referred as stack frame. The
stack frame contains the following information:
• R0-R3, R12
• Return address
• PSR
• LR.
Immediately after stacking, the stack pointer indicates the lowest address in the stack frame.
Unless stack alignment is disabled, the stack frame is aligned to a double-word address. If
the STKALIGN bit of the Configuration Control Register (CCR) is set to 1, stack align
adjustment is performed during stacking.
The stack frame includes the return address. This is the address of the next instruction in
the interrupted program. This value is restored to the PC at exception return so that the
interrupted program resumes.
In parallel to the stacking operation, the processor performs a vector fetch that reads the
exception handler start address from the vector table. When stacking is complete, the
processor starts executing the exception handler. At the same time, the processor writes an
EXC_RETURN value to the LR. This indicates which stack pointer corresponds to the stack
frame and what operation mode the was processor was in before the entry occurred.
If no higher priority exception occurs during exception entry, the processor starts executing
the exception handler and automatically changes the status of the corresponding pending
interrupt to active.
If another higher priority exception occurs during exception entry, the processor starts
executing the exception handler for this exception and does not change the pending status
of the earlier exception. This is the late arrival case.
Exception return
Exception return occurs when the processor is in Handler mode and executes one of the
following instructions to load the EXC_RETURN value into the PC:
• A POP instruction that includes the PC
• A BX instruction with any register.
• An LDR or LDM instruction with the PC as the destination
EXC_RETURN is the value loaded into the LR on exception entry. The exception
mechanism relies on this value to detect when the processor has completed an exception
handler. The lowest four bits of this value provide information on the return stack and
processor mode. Table 17 shows the EXC_RETURN[3:0] values with a description of the
exception return behavior.
The processor sets EXC_RETURN bits[31:4] to 0xFFFFFFF. When this value is loaded into
the PC it indicates to the processor that the exception is complete, and the processor
initiates the exception return sequence.
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