SKYSPIN

Addressing modes in 8086 microprocessor

The way for which an operand is specified for an instruction in the accumulator, in a general purpose register or in memory location, is called addressing mode.

The 8086 microprocessors have 8 addressing modes. Two addressing modes have been provided for instructions which operate on register or immediate data.

These two addressing modes are:

Register Addressing: In register addressing, the operand is placed in one of the 16-bit or 8-bit general purpose registers.

Example

• MOV AX, CX
• ADD AL, BL
• ADD CX, DX

Immediate Addressing: In immediate addressing, the operand is specified in the instruction itself.

Example

• MOV AL, 35H
• MOV BX, 0301H
• MOV [0401], 3598H
• ADD AX, 4836H

The remaining 6 addressing modes specify the location of an operand which is placed in a memory.

These 6 addressing modes are:

Direct Addressing: In direct addressing mode, the operand?s offset is given in the instruction as an 8-bit or 16-bit displacement element.

Example

• ADD AL, [0301]

The instruction adds the content of the offset address 0301 to AL. the operand is placed at the given offset (0301) within the data segment DS.

Register Indirect Addressing: The operand's offset is placed in any one of the registers BX, BP, SI or DI as specified in the instruction.

Example

• MOV AX, [BX]

It moves the contents of memory locations addressed by the register BX to the register AX.

Based Addressing: The operand's offset is the sum of an 8-bit or 16-bit displacement and the contents of the base register BX or BP. BX is used as base register for data segment, and the BP is used as a base register for stack segment.

Effective address (Offset) = [BX + 8-bit or 16-bit displacement].

Example

• MOV AL, [BX+05]; an example of 8-bit displacement.
• MOV AL, [BX + 1346H]; example of 16-bit displacement.

Indexed Addressing: The offset of an operand is the sum of the content of an index register SI or DI and an 8-bit or 16-bit displacement.

Offset (Effective Address) = [SI or DI + 8-bit or 16-bit displacement]

Example

• MOV AX, [SI + 05]; 8-bit displacement.
• MOV AX, [SI + 1528H]; 16-bit displacement.

Based Indexed Addressing: The offset of operand is the sum of the content of a base register BX or BP and an index register SI or DI.

Effective Address (Offset) = [BX or BP] + [SI or DI]

Here, BX is used for a base register for data segment, and BP is used as a base register for stack segment.

Example

• ADD AX, [BX + SI]
• MOV CX, [BX + SI]

Based Indexed with Displacement: In this mode of addressing, the operand's offset is given by:

Effective Address (Offset) = [BX or BP] + [SI or DI] + 8-bit or 16-bit displacement

Example

• MOV AX, [BX + SI + 05]; 8-bit displacement
• MOV AX, [BX + SI + 1235H]; 16-bit displacement