Texas Instruments MSP430x4xx Family, User Manual

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CPU Introduction
4-2 16-Bit MSP430X CPU
4.1 CPU Introduction
The MSP430X CPU incorporates features specifically designed for modern
programming techniques such as calculated branching, table processing and
the use of high-level languages such as C. The MSP430X CPU can address
a 1-MB address range without paging. In addition, the MSP430X CPU has
fewer interrupt overhead cycles and fewer instruction cycles in some cases
than the MSP430 CPU, while maintaining the same or better code density than
the MSP430 CPU. The MSP430X CPU is completely backwards compatible
with the MSP430 CPU.
The MSP430X CPU features include:
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RISC architecture.
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Orthogonal architecture.
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Full register access including program counter, status register and stack
pointer.
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Single-cycle register operations.
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Large register file reduces fetches to memory.
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20-bit address bus allows direct access and branching throughout the
entire memory range without paging.
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16-bit data bus allows direct manipulation of word-wide arguments.
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Constant generator provides the six most often used immediate values
and reduces code size.
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Direct memory-to-memory transfers without intermediate register holding.
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Byte, word, and 20-bit address-word addressing
The block diagram of the MSP430X CPU is shown in Figure 4−1.