armv8

keywords: aarch64, arm64, A64, aarch32, A32, T32, abi

The armv8 architecture introduces support for 64-bit and defines two execution states aarch64 and aarch32.

Implementations are not required to implement all execution states for all exception levels (EL). For example the coretex-a32 only implements aarch32, while the coretex-a34 only implements aarch64.

The execution states support different instruction sets.

• aarch64 only supports the new A64 instruction set, where all instructions have the fixed size of of 32 bits.
• aarch32 supports the A32 and T32 instruction sets. These are updated versions of the armv7 instruction sets, kept backwards compatible allowing armv7 programs to run on armv8.

  In armv7 the instruction sets A32 an T32 were called arm and thumb respectively.

A program always runs in either the aarch64 or the aarch32 execution state, but never in a mixture of both. Transitions between execution states only occur when raising or lowering the exception level.

• aarch64 -> aarch32 can only occur when switching from higher EL to lower EL.
• aarch32 -> aarch64 can only occur when switching from lower EL to higher EL.

The following figure depicts which execution state Transitions are allowed.

      (user) EL0     ^       |
        (os) EL1     |    32->64
(hypervisor) EL2  64->32     |
    (secure) EL3     |       v

This means for example, an os running in aarch32 can only support aarch32 user applications, while an os running in aarch64 can support aarch32 / aarch64 user applications.