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Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology Software Developer's Guide

Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology Software Developer's Guide

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CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION1.1. INTEL ® EXTENDED MEMORY <strong>64</strong> TECHNOLOGYThis document describes the enhancements made to Intel ® IA-32 architecture to support <strong>64</strong>-bit address extensions.Enhancements include new operating modes, new instructions, and enhanced instructions. Chapter 1 documents software-visiblechanges of the Intel ® <strong>Extended</strong> <strong>Memory</strong> <strong>64</strong> <strong>Technology</strong> (Intel ® EM<strong>64</strong>T). Chapters 2 and 3 document theinstructions in various operating modes. Chapter 4 describes coding rules and optimizations that apply.Intel EM<strong>64</strong>T is an enhancement to Intel IA-32 architecture. An IA-32 processor equipped with this technology iscompatible with existing IA-32 software, enables software to access more memory address space, and allows for theco-existence of software written for 32-bit linear address space with software capable of accessing <strong>64</strong>-bit linear addressspace.1.2. OPERATING MODESIntel EM<strong>64</strong>T introduces a new operating mode referred to as IA-32e mode. IA-32e mode includes two sub-modes.These are: (1) compatibility mode which enables a <strong>64</strong>-bit operating system to run most legacy 32-bit software unmodified,(2) <strong>64</strong>-bit mode which enables a <strong>64</strong>-bit operating system to run applications written to access <strong>64</strong>-bit addressspace.In the <strong>64</strong>-bit sub-mode of Intel EM<strong>64</strong>T, applications may access:• <strong>64</strong>-bit flat linear addressing• 8 new general-purpose registers (GPRs)• 8 new registers for streaming SIMD extensions (SSE, SSE2 and SSE3)• <strong>64</strong>-bit-wide GPRs and instruction pointers• uniform byte-register addressing• fast interrupt-prioritization mechanism• a new instruction-pointer relative-addressing mode.A processor with Intel EM<strong>64</strong>T can run in legacy IA-32 mode or IA-32e mode. Legacy IA-32 mode allows theprocessor to run in protected mode, real address mode or virtual 8086 mode. A processor with Intel EM<strong>64</strong>T initiallyoperates in legacy, paging-enabled, protected mode. It then transitions to IA-32e mode when a bit in the IA32-EFERregister is set and PAE mode is enabled (see Section 1.3.3.1.). Table 1-1 shows the supported operating modes and thedifferences between each mode.Vol. 1 1-1

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