FAR_EL3, Fault Address Register (EL3)

The FAR_EL3 characteristics are:

Purpose

Holds the faulting Virtual Address for all synchronous Instruction or Data Abort and PC alignment fault exceptions that are taken to EL3.

This register is part of the Exception and fault handling registers functional group.

Configuration

RW fields in this register reset to architecturally UNKNOWN values.

Attributes

FAR_EL3 is a 64-bit register.

Field descriptions

The FAR_EL3 bit assignments are:

6362616059585756555453525150494847464544434241403938373635343332
Faulting Virtual Address for synchronous exceptions taken to EL3
Faulting Virtual Address for synchronous exceptions taken to EL3
313029282726252423222120191817161514131211109876543210

Bits [63:0]

Faulting Virtual Address for synchronous exceptions taken to EL3. Exceptions that set the FAR_EL3 are Instruction Aborts (EC 0x20 or 0x21), Data Aborts (EC 0x24 or 0x25), and PC alignment faults (EC 0x22). ESR_EL3.EC holds the EC value for the exception.

For a synchronous External abort, if the VA that generated the abort was from an address range for which TCR_ELx.TBI{<0|1>} == 1 for the translation regime in use when the abort was generated, then the top eight bits of FAR_EL3 are UNKNOWN.

For a synchronous External abort other than a synchronous External abort on a translation table walk, this field is valid only if ESR_EL3.FnV is 0, and the FAR_EL3 is UNKNOWN if ESR_EL3.FnV is 1.

For all other exceptions taken to EL3, the FAR_EL3 is UNKNOWN.

If a memory fault that sets FAR_EL3 is generated from a data cache maintenance or DC ZVA instruction, this field holds the address specified in the register argument of the instruction.

If the exception that updates FAR_EL3 is taken from an EL using AArch32, the top 32-bits are all zero, unless the faulting address is generated by a load or store instruction that sequentially increments from address 0xffffffff. This is an UNPREDICTABLE condition, and in this case the upper 32-bits are set to 0x00000001.

For a Data Abort or Watchpoint exception, if address tagging is enabled for the address accessed by the data access that caused the exception, then this field includes the tag. For more information about address tagging, see 'Address tagging in AArch64 state' in the ARMv8 ARM.

Note

The address held in this register is an address accessed by the instruction fetch or data access that caused the exception that actually gave rise to the instruction or data abort. It is the lowest address that gave rise to the fault. Where different faults from different addresses arise from the same instruction, such as for an instruction that loads or stores a mis-aligned address that crosses a page boundary, the architecture does not prioritize between those different faults.

FAR_EL3 is made UNKNOWN on an exception return from EL3.

Accessing the FAR_EL3

This register can be read using MRS with the following syntax:

MRS <Xt>, <systemreg>

This register can be written using MSR (register) with the following syntax:

MSR <systemreg>, <Xt>

This syntax uses the following encoding in the System instruction encoding space:

<systemreg> op0op1CRnCRmop2
FAR_EL31111001100000000

Accessibility

The register is accessible as follows:

Control Accessibility
E2HTGENSEL0EL1EL2EL3
xx0 - - n/a RW
001 - - - RW
011 - n/a - RW
101 - - - RW
111 - n/a - RW

This table applies to all instructions that can access this register.




28/09/2017 08:24

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