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Glossary
ARM DUI 0553A
Copyright © 2010 ARM. All rights reserved.
Glossary-4
ID121610
Non-Confidential
Memory Protection Unit (MPU)
Hardware that controls access permissions to blocks of memory. An MPU does not perform any
address translation.
Prefetching
In pipelined processors, the process of fetching instructions from memory to fill up the pipeline
before the preceding instructions have finished executing. Prefetching an instruction does not
mean that the instruction has to be executed.
Read
Reads are defined as memory operations that have the semantics of a load. Reads include the
Thumb instructions
LDM
,
LDR
,
LDRSH
,
LDRH
,
LDRSB
,
LDRB
, and
POP
.
Region
A partition of memory space.
Reserved
A field in a control register or instruction format is reserved if the field is to be defined by the
implementation, or produces Unpredictable results if the contents of the field are not zero. These
fields are reserved for use in future extensions of the architecture or are
implementation-specific. All reserved bits not used by the implementation must be written as 0
and read as 0.
Should Be One (SBO)
Write as 1, or all 1s for bit fields, by software. Writing as 0 produces Unpredictable results.
Should Be Zero (SBZ)
Write as 0, or all 0s for bit fields, by software. Writing as 1 produces Unpredictable results.
Should Be Zero or Preserved (SBZP)
Write as 0, or all 0s for bit fields, by software, or preserved by writing the same value back that
has been previously read from the same field on the same processor.
Thread-safe
In a multi-tasking environment, thread-safe functions use safeguard mechanisms when
accessing shared resources, to ensure correct operation without the risk of shared access
conflicts.
Thumb instruction
One or two halfwords that specify an operation for a processor to perform. Thumb instructions
must be halfword-aligned.
Unaligned
A data item stored at an address that is not divisible by the number of bytes that defines the data
size is said to be unaligned. For example, a word stored at an address that is not divisible by four.
Undefined
Indicates an instruction that generates an Undefined instruction exception.
Unpredictable (UNP)
You cannot rely on the behavior. Unpredictable behavior must not represent security holes.
Unpredictable behavior must not halt or hang the processor, or any parts of the system.
Warm reset
Also known as a core reset. Initializes the majority of the processor excluding the debug
controller and debug logic. This type of reset is useful if you are using the debugging features
of a processor.
WA
.
WB
Word
A 32-bit data item.
Write
Writes are defined as operations that have the semantics of a store. Writes include the Thumb
instructions
STM
,
STR
,
STRH
,
STRB
, and
PUSH
.
Write-allocate (WA)
In a write-allocate cache, a cache miss on storing data causes a cache line to be allocated into
the cache.