The pins
The squares around the outside of the image above are the pads that connect the processor to the outside world.
The photo below shows the 84-pin package for the ARM1 processor chip. The gold-plated pins are wired to the pads on the silicon chip inside the package.
The ARM1 processor chip installed in the Acorn ARM Evaluation System. Full photo by Flibble, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Most of the pads are used for the address and data lines to memory.
The chip has 26 address lines, allowing it to access 64MB of memory, and has 32 data lines, allowing it to read or write 32 bits at a time. The address lines are in the lower left and the data lines are in the lower right.
As the simulator runs, you can see the address pins step through memory and the data pins read data from memory. The right hand side of the simulator shows the address and data values in hex, e.g. “A:00000020 D:e1a00271”. If you know hex, you can easily match these values to the pin states.
Each corner of the chip has a power pin (+) and a ground pin (-), providing 5 volts to run the chip.
Various control signals are at the top of the chip. In the simulator, it is easy to spot the the two clock signals that step the chip through its operations (below). The phase 1 and phase 2 clocks alternate, providing a tick-tock rhythm to the chip. In the simulator, the clock runs at a couple cycles per second, while the real chip has a 8MHz clock, more than a million times faster.
Finally, note below the manufacturer’s name “ACORN” on the chip in place of pin 82.
The two clock signals for the ARM1 processor chip.
