Machine state register

A machine state register (MSR) is one of three process control registers present in the PowerPC processor architecture.

Processors

The implementation details of the machine state register will vary from model to model. Below are two representative implementations, the 32-bit Freescale e200z3 PowerPC core and the 64-bit IBM PowerPC.

e200z3 PowerPC core

Uses of the machine state register

This 32-bit register either controls and/or reports several important processor states.

Mnemonic Description
UCLE Enables/disables userspace execution of cache locking instructions
SPE Enables/disables vector instructions
WE Enables/disables power management
CE Enables/disables critical interrupts
EE Enables/disables external interrupts
PR Identifies if the processor is in supervisor or user mode
FP Identifies availability of hardware floating point unit
ME Enables/disables machine check interrupts
FE0 Sets floating point exception mode
DE Enable/disable debug interrupts
FE1 Sets floating point exception mode
IS Sets instruction address space
DS Sets data address space

Reading and writing the machine state register

The contents of the register may be read using the move from machine state register (mfmsr) instruction and may be modified by executing the return from interrupt (rfi, rfci, rfdi), system call (sc) and move to machine state register (mtmsr) instructions.

PowerPC

Uses of the machine state register

This 64-bit register either controls and/or reports several important processor states.

Mnemonic Description
SF Selects 32-bit/64-bit mode
HV Selects hypervisor state
EE Enable/disable external interrupts
PR Selects privileged or problem state
FP Reports floating-point availability
ME Enables/disables machine check interrupts
FE0 Select floating-point mode exception mode
SE Enables/disables single-step tracing
BE Enables/disables branch tracing
FE1 Select floating-point exception mode
IR Enable/disable instruction address translation
DR Enable/disable data address translation
PMM Performance monitor mark
RI Lists whether interrupt is (non-) recoverable
LE Selects Little-Endian or Big-Endian mode

Reading and writing the machine state register

The machine state register can be read using the mfmsr instruction and modified using the mtmsr[d], rfid and hrfid instructions.

Confusion with model-specific register

While the machine state register found in the PowerPC architecture and the model-specific registers found in IA-32 and x86 64 architectures fulfill similar functions and the initialism "MSR" can refer to either, there are important differences that distinguish them. The machine state register, a single register, provides coarse-grained control over a small number of machine functions. In contrast, dozens to hundreds of model-specific registers exist on recent IA-32 and x86_64 architectures and provide a much finer granularity of both reporting and control of machine state. The term "machine state register" does not appear in Intel and AMD documentation; likewise "model-specific register" does not appear in IBM and Freescale documentation.

References

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