We have discussed quite a few times in this 8085 course about how the 8085 reads and writes data from or to memory. But we know that unlike microcontrollers that have a certain amount of built-in memory, microprocessors do not have their own memory except for a few registers. So, where does 8085 read and write data?
Since 8085 does not have any substantial internal memory, we need to attach external memory chips. How do we connect a memory chip to the 8085 and manage the interactions between the two chips? That is what we are going to learn in this post.
We will take up a problem statement and solve it step by step, learning the concepts in the process as we move along.
Contents
Memory support in 8085
An 8085 microprocessor has a 16-bit address bus. Each bit can take the value of either 0 or 1. So, the total number of addresses that can be generated on a 16-bit address bus will be 256. And each unique address refers to a memory block containing 8 bits or 1 byte of space.
Thus, we can say that 8085 can support a memory chip of size up to 64 kB. We can interface a memory chip of size less than that too. Also, we can interface several memory chips to a single 8085 microprocessor, until and unless their combined size does not exceed 64 kB. Let us learn how to achieve all that.
Memory chips of different types and sizes
Memory chips come in a variety of types and with different storage capacities. A broad classification of memory chips based on their read and write capability is:
- RAM (Random Access Memory): We can read as well as write data on this type of memory. The chip of this type has pins for both memory read and memory write signals.
- ROM (Read Only Memory): As the name suggests, we can only write data on this type of memory chip. The chip of this type has a pin only for memory read signal.
Now, you must be wondering what does a microprocessor read from a ROM if data cannot be written on it.
Data cannot be written on it by a microprocessor when it is connected in the circuit. But data can be written on it using some special techniques. This kind of memory is used to store programs, while RAM is used to store the data.
ROM is also of two types:
- EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory): The contents of an EPROM are erased by UV rays. Data is written on it optically.
- EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory): As the name suggests, data is written and removed on this type of ROM electronically.
Memory chips come in different sizes. The illustration shows below what these numbers in the specification of a memory chip capacity (size) mean.
Now, let us learn through an example, how external RAM and external ROM chips can be interfaced with 8085. Let us take up a problem regarding the interfacing of memory and solve it as we learn the topic.
Memory interfacing – Problem statement
Interface a 1kB EPROM and a 2 kB RAM with microprocessor 8085. The address allotted to 1 kB EPROM should be 2000H to 22FFH. You can assign the address range of your choice to the 2 kB RAM.
The first step to solve this problem is to understand the pins of the given memory chips.
Pin diagram of memory chips
RAM and ROM both have same pins, except for WR pin, which is present in RAM and is not there in a ROM. Let us understand the pins one by one.
- Data pins: Since each memory location stores eight bits, there are eight data lines D0-D7 connected to the memory chip.
- Address pins: The number of address pins depends on the size of the memory. In this case, a memory of size 1 kB x 8 will have 210 different memory locations. Hence, it will have ten address lines A0 to A9. Similarly, the 2 kB RAM will have 211 different memory locations. So, there are 11 address lines A0-A10.
- CS pin: When this pin is enabled, the memory chip knows that the microprocessor is talking to it and responds to it accordingly. We need to generate this signal for each of the chips according to the range of addresses assigned to them. Basically, we select a chip only when it is needed. The Chip Select (CS) pin is used for this.
- OE pin: When this active-low output enable pin is enabled, the memory chip can output the data into the data bus.
- WR pin: Upon activation of this active-low memory write pin, data on the data bus is written on the memory chip at the location specified by the address bus.
- VCC and GND pins: These pins serve the purpose of powering the ICs. For simplicity, we will not show these pins in the diagram.
There are three types of buses in 8085 – Address bus, data bus, and control bus. Each of these buses will be connected to the memory chip.
Connecting Control Signals
In the memory chips, there are two pins for control signals – OE (Output Enable) and WR (Memory Write). These will be connected to the control signals generated using a 3 to 8 decoder. To read about the generation of control signals, you can read our post on Demultiplexing of Bus and Generating Control Signals. The circuit for generating control signals is shown below.
Four control signals are generated when we input the WR, RD and IO/M signals from the 8085 to the 3:8 decoder – IOR, IOW, MEMR and MEMW. Since we are dealing with memory, we will just need MEMR and MEMW signals.
While reading from a memory chip, it’s output should be enabled. So, MEMR will be connected to the OE pin. Similarly, for writing to a memory chip, MEMW will be connected to the WR pin of the RAM. After completing these two connections, we are done with the control signals except CS. We will deal with that in a bit.
Data Bus interfacing
There are eight lines comprising the data bus of both 8085 and the memory chips. The interfacing of the data bus is the simplest part. We just connect corresponding lines (D0-D7 from 8085) to the corresponding pins (D0-D7 of the memory chip).
Address bus Interfacing
We have a 2kB RAM with 11 address lines. So, the first 11 lines of the address bus of 8085 will be connected to the corresponding address lines of the 2kB RAM. Similarly, the first 10 lines of the address bus of 8085 will be connected to the corresponding lines of 1kB EPROM. The remaining address lines will be used to generate the chip select (CS) signal.
Generating the chip select signal
This is a little tricky, but it’s the most important part of solving the problem. Let us proceed step by step and build up an intuition of how to generate the chip select signal for a memory of given size and given address range.
Let us tabulate the starting and ending address of the 1kB EPROM.
A15 is most significant, and A0 is the least significant bit. The address range for placing the EPROM is from 2000H to 22FFH (as given in the question.) Translating these to binary:
2000H = 0011 0000 0000 0000
22FFH = 0011 0011 1111 1111
| Address bit number | A15 | A14 | A13 | A12 | A11 | A10 | A9 | A8 | A7 | A6 | A5 | A4 | A3 | A2 | A1 | A0 |
| Starting address | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ending Address | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
From the above table, we can observe that ten bits from A0 to A9 are changing. These ten bits are directly connected to the address lines of the memory chip.
These ten bits take the value of either 0 or 1 to form addresses. The first address is 00 0000 0000, and the second address is 00 0000 0001, the third is 00 0000 0010 and so on. The last address will be 11 1111 1111.
Meanwhile, bits A11 to A15 do not change and don’t have any effect on the addressing process inside the memory chip. So, we can conclude that the values of bits A15-A11 (0011 00) given in the above table are in a unique, unchanging configuration for this memory chip. If even one of these bits changes, the address won’t belong to this memory chip. So, we can use these values of A15-A11 to uniquely identify this memory chip, which is exactly what the CS signal is supposed to do.
We can say that when A15 = A14 = A11 = A10 = 0 and A13 = A12 = 1, then our memory chip should be selected. Now, we need to design the logic to generate the CS signal. The resulting Boolean equation of CS will be:
CS = Complement of (A15* . A14* . A13 . A12 . A11* . A10*)
This equation can be implemented using NAND Gate. The final chip select logic for 1kB EPROM is illustrated below.
Now, we have to generate a chip select signal for the second memory chip, which is 2kB RAM. The process is quite similar and differs from the previous one in two ways:
- The size of the memory is different. So, there are 11 address lines instead of 10.
- We are not given an address range here. We are given the liberty to decide on our own.
Similar to the previous case, we connect the first 11 address lines of the 8085 microprocessor to the 11 address lines of the 2kB RAM. These bits will take values of 0 and 1 and will generate 2 * 1024 different addresses. The address bits A10-A0 will vary from 000 0000 0000 to 111 1111 1111.
What about the remaining address bits? Well, they don’t have any role in the addressing of the memory in this 2kB RAM. So, we can fix them to a certain value without affecting anything. Let’s fix them to 0000 0. Thus, the address range for this chip becomes 0000 0000 0000 0000 to 0000 0111 1111 1111. In hexadecimal, the address range will be from 0000H to 07FFH.
| Address bit number | A15 | A14 | A13 | A12 | A11 | A10 | A9 | A8 | A7 | A6 | A5 | A4 | A3 | A2 | A1 | A0 |
| Starting address | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ending Address | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
We use a similar technique here. We use the remaining bits A15-A11 to uniquely identify this chip i.e., to generate chip select signal. So, the boolean equation will be
CS = Complement of (A15* . A14* . A13* . A12* . A11*)
The implementation of this equation using NAND Gate to generate the CS signal is shown in the following image.
The final circuit
Since we now have the chip select logic and have decided all the connections, it’s time to finalize the circuit. The entire external memory interfacing circuit can be broken up into five different parts:
- 8085 microprocessor
- Demultiplexing of address/data bus
- Generation of control signals
- Generation of chip select signals
- Memory chips
The images below show the final circuit with all the five parts listed above integrated into a single circuit. Just the connections are shown in the first diagram. In the diagram following it, different subsections of the circuit are labeled.
The above diagram summarizes the entire process of interfacing the external memory with the 8085 microprocessor. If you have any queries regarding the topic, drop a comment below, and we will get back to you.
