The Cortex-M4 Instruction Set
ARM DUI 0553A
Copyright © 2010 ARM. All rights reserved.
3-21
ID121610
Non-Confidential
3.3.8
Instruction width selection
There are many instructions that can generate either a 16-bit encoding or a 32-bit encoding
depending on the operands and destination register specified. For some of these instructions,
you can force a specific instruction size by using an instruction width suffix. The
.W
suffix forces
a 32-bit instruction encoding. The
.N
suffix forces a 16-bit instruction encoding.
If you specify an instruction width suffix and the assembler cannot generate an instruction
encoding of the requested width, it generates an error.
Note
In some cases it might be necessary to specify the
.W
suffix, for example if the operand is the
label of an instruction or literal data, as in the case of branch instructions. This is because the
assembler might not automatically generate the right size encoding.
To use an instruction width suffix, place it immediately after the instruction mnemonic and
condition code, if any.
shows instructions with the instruction width suffix.
Example 3-3 Instruction width selection
BCS.W
label
; creates a 32-bit instruction even for a short branch
ADDS.W R0, R0, R1 ; creates a 32-bit instruction even though the same
; operation can be done by a 16-bit instruction