SLAA534A June   2013  – June 2020

 

  1. 1 Introduction
    1. 1.1  ABIs for the MSP430
    2. 1.2  Scope
    3. 1.3  ABI Variants
    4. 1.4  Toolchains and Interoperability
    5. 1.5  Libraries
    6. 1.6  Types of Object Files
    7. 1.7  Segments
    8. 1.8  MSP430 Architecture Overview
    9. 1.9  MSP430 Memory Models
    10. 1.10 Reference Documents
    11. 1.11 Code Fragment Notation
  2. 2 Data Representation
    1. 2.1 Basic Types
    2. 2.2 Data in Registers
    3. 2.3 Data in Memory
    4. 2.4 Pointer Types
    5. 2.5 Complex Types
    6. 2.6 Structures and Unions
    7. 2.7 Arrays
    8. 2.8 Bit Fields
      1. 2.8.1 Volatile Bit Fields
    9. 2.9 Enumeration Types
  3. 3 Calling Conventions
    1. 3.1 Call and Return
      1. 3.1.1 Call Instructions
        1. 3.1.1.1 Indirect Calls
        2. 3.1.1.2 Direct Calls
      2. 3.1.2 Return Instruction
      3. 3.1.3 Pipeline Conventions
      4. 3.1.4 Weak Functions
    2. 3.2 Register Conventions
      1. 3.2.1 Argument Registers
      2. 3.2.2 Callee-Saved Registers
    3. 3.3 Argument Passing
      1. 3.3.1 Register Singles
      2. 3.3.2 Register Pairs
      3. 3.3.3 Split Pairs
      4. 3.3.4 Quads (Four-Register Arguments)
      5. 3.3.5 Special Convention for Compiler Helper Functions
      6. 3.3.6 C++ Argument Passing
      7. 3.3.7 Passing Structs and Unions
      8. 3.3.8 Stack Layout of Arguments Not Passed in Registers
      9. 3.3.9 Frame Pointer
    4. 3.4 Return Values
    5. 3.5 Structures and Unions Passed and Returned by Reference
    6. 3.6 Conventions for Compiler Helper Functions
    7. 3.7 Scratch Registers for Functions Already Seen
    8. 3.8 _ _mspabi_func_epilog Helper Functions
    9. 3.9 Interrupt Functions
  4. 4 Data Allocation and Addressing
    1. 4.1 Data Sections and Segments
    2. 4.2 Addressing Modes
    3. 4.3 Allocation and Addressing of Static Data
      1. 4.3.1 Addressing Methods for Static Data
        1. 4.3.1.1 Absolute Addressing
        2. 4.3.1.2 Symbolic Addressing
        3. 4.3.1.3 Immediate Addressing
      2. 4.3.2 Placement Conventions for Static Data
        1. 4.3.2.1 Abstract Conventions for Placement
        2. 4.3.2.2 Abstract Conventions for Addressing
      3. 4.3.3 Initialization of Static Data
    4. 4.4 Automatic Variables
    5. 4.5 Frame Layout
      1. 4.5.1 Stack Alignment
      2. 4.5.2 Register Save Order
    6. 4.6 Heap-Allocated Objects
  5. 5 Code Allocation and Addressing
    1. 5.1 Computing the Address of a Code Label
      1. 5.1.1 Absolute Addressing for Code
      2. 5.1.2 Symbolic Addressing
      3. 5.1.3 Immediate Addressing
    2. 5.2 Branching
    3. 5.3 Calls
      1. 5.3.1 Direct Call
      2. 5.3.2 Far Call Trampoline
      3. 5.3.3 Indirect Calls
  6. 6 Helper Function API
    1. 6.1 Floating-Point Behavior
    2. 6.2 C Helper Function API
    3. 6.3 Special Register Conventions for Helper Functions
    4. 6.4 Floating-Point Helper Functions for C99
  7. 7 Standard C Library API
    1. 7.1  Reserved Symbols
    2. 7.2  <assert.h> Implementation
    3. 7.3  <complex.h> Implementation
    4. 7.4  <ctype.h> Implementation
    5. 7.5  <errno.h> Implementation
    6. 7.6  <float.h> Implementation
    7. 7.7  <inttypes.h> Implementation
    8. 7.8  <iso646.h> Implementation
    9. 7.9  <limits.h> Implementation
    10. 7.10 <locale.h> Implementation
    11. 7.11 <math.h> Implementation
    12. 7.12 <setjmp.h> Implementation
    13. 7.13 <signal.h> Implementation
    14. 7.14 <stdarg.h> Implementation
    15. 7.15 <stdbool.h> Implementation
    16. 7.16 <stddef.h> Implementation
    17. 7.17 <stdint.h> Implementation
    18. 7.18 <stdio.h> Implementation
    19. 7.19 <stdlib.h> Implementation
    20. 7.20 <string.h> Implementation
    21. 7.21 <tgmath.h> Implementation
    22. 7.22 <time.h> Implementation
    23. 7.23 <wchar.h> Implementation
    24. 7.24 <wctype.h> Implementation
  8. 8 C++ ABI
    1. 8.1  Limits (GC++ABI 1.2)
    2. 8.2  Export Template (GC++ABI 1.4.2)
    3. 8.3  Data Layout (GC++ABI Chapter 2)
    4. 8.4  Initialization Guard Variables (GC++ABI 2.8)
    5. 8.5  Constructor Return Value (GC++ABI 3.1.5)
    6. 8.6  One-Time Construction API (GC++ABI 3.3.2)
    7. 8.7  Controlling Object Construction Order (GC++ ABI 3.3.4)
    8. 8.8  Demangler API (GC++ABI 3.4)
    9. 8.9  Static Data (GC++ ABI 5.2.2)
    10. 8.10 Virtual Tables and the Key function (GC++ABI 5.2.3)
    11. 8.11 Unwind Table Location (GC++ABI 5.3)
  9. 9 Exception Handling
    1. 9.1  Overview
    2. 9.2  PREL31 Encoding
    3. 9.3  The Exception Index Table (EXIDX)
      1. 9.3.1 Pointer to Out-of-Line EXTAB Entry
      2. 9.3.2 EXIDX_CANTUNWIND
      3. 9.3.3 Inlined EXTAB Entry
    4. 9.4  The Exception Handling Instruction Table (EXTAB)
      1. 9.4.1 EXTAB Generic Model
      2. 9.4.2 EXTAB Compact Model
      3. 9.4.3 Personality Routines
    5. 9.5  Unwinding Instructions
      1. 9.5.1 Common Sequence
      2. 9.5.2 Byte-Encoded Unwinding Instructions
    6. 9.6  Descriptors
      1. 9.6.1 Encoding of Type Identifiers
      2. 9.6.2 Scope
      3. 9.6.3 Cleanup Descriptor
      4. 9.6.4 Catch Descriptor
      5. 9.6.5 Function Exception Specification (FESPEC) Descriptor
    7. 9.7  Special Sections
    8. 9.8  Interaction With Non-C++ Code
      1. 9.8.1 Automatic EXIDX Entry Generation
      2. 9.8.2 Hand-Coded Assembly Functions
    9. 9.9  Interaction With System Features
      1. 9.9.1 Shared Libraries
      2. 9.9.2 Overlays
      3. 9.9.3 Interrupts
    10. 9.10 Assembly Language Operators in the TI Toolchain
  10. 10DWARF
    1. 10.1 DWARF Register Names
    2. 10.2 Call Frame Information
    3. 10.3 Vendor Names
    4. 10.4 Vendor Extensions
  11. 11ELF Object Files (Processor Supplement)
    1. 11.1 Registered Vendor Names
    2. 11.2 ELF Header
    3. 11.3 Sections
      1. 11.3.1 Section Indexes
      2. 11.3.2 Section Types
      3. 11.3.3 Extended Section Header Attributes
      4. 11.3.4 Subsections
      5. 11.3.5 Special Sections
      6. 11.3.6 Section Alignment
    4. 11.4 Symbol Table
      1. 11.4.1 Symbol Types
      2. 11.4.2 Common Block Symbols
      3. 11.4.3 Symbol Names
      4. 11.4.4 Reserved Symbol Names
      5. 11.4.5 Mapping Symbols
    5. 11.5 Relocation
      1. 11.5.1 Relocation Types
        1. 11.5.1.1 Absolute Relocations
        2. 11.5.1.2 PC-Relative Relocations
        3. 11.5.1.3 Relocations in Data Sections
        4. 11.5.1.4 Relocations for MSP430 Instructions
        5. 11.5.1.5 Relocations for MSP430X Instructions
        6. 11.5.1.6 Other Relocation Types
      2. 11.5.2 Relocation Operations
      3. 11.5.3 Relocation of Unresolved Weak References
  12. 12ELF Program Loading and Linking (Processor Supplement)
    1. 12.1 Program Header
      1. 12.1.1 Base Address
      2. 12.1.2 Segment Contents
      3. 12.1.3 Thread-Local Storage
    2. 12.2 Program Loading
  13. 13Build Attributes
    1. 13.1 MSP430 ABI Build Attribute Subsection
    2. 13.2 MSP430 Build Attribute Tags
  14. 14Copy Tables and Variable Initialization
    1. 14.1 Copy Table Format
    2. 14.2 Compressed Data Formats
      1. 14.2.1 RLE
      2. 14.2.2 LZSS Format
    3. 14.3 Variable Initialization
  15. 15Revision History

2.1 Basic Types

Integral values use twos-complement representation. Floating-point values are represented using IEEE 754.1 representation. Floating-point operations follow IEEE 754.1 to the degree supported by the hardware.

Table 2-1 gives the size and alignment of C data types in bits.

Table 2-1 Data Sizes for Standard Types
TypeGeneric NameSizeAlignment
signed charschar88
unsigned charuchar88
charplain char88
bool (C99)uchar88
_Bool (C99)uchar88
bool (C++)uchar88
short, signed shortint161616
unsigned shortuint161616
int, signed intint16 16 16
unsigned intuint16 16 16
long , signed longint323216
unsigned longuint323216
long long, signed long longint646416
unsigned long longuint646416
enum--varies (see Section 2.10)16
floatfloat323216
doublefloat646416
long doublefloat646416
pointer--varies (see Section 2.5)16

Generic names in the table are used in this specification to identify types in a language-independent way.

The char type is unsigned by default. This is in contrast to the "signed char" and "unsigned char" types, which specify their sign behavior. In the TI toolchain, the default for the "char" type can be changed using the --plain_char=signed compiler option.

The integral types have complementary unsigned variants. The generic names are prefixed with 'u' (e.g. uint32).

The type bool uses the value 0 to represent false and 1 to represent true. Other values are undefined.

The additional types from C, C99 and C++ are defined as synonyms for standard types:

          typedef unsigned int     wchar_t;
          typedef unsigned int     wint_t;
          typedef char *           va_list;

See Section 2.5 for the sizes of the size_t and ptrdiff_t types, which are dependent on the selected code and data model.