JAL

Jump and Link

JAL rd, offset

Jumps to an offset relative to PC and saves the return address (PC+4) to rd.

Encoding

Binary Layout

jimm20

31:12

rd

11:7

1101111

6:0

 

Format J-Type

Opcode 0x0000006F

Extension RV32I

Operands

• rd
  Return Address Dest
• offset
  20-bit PC-relative Offset

Example

JAL x1, loop_target

// Jump to 'loop_target' and save return address in x1 (ra).

Related

More in RV32I

Reference

View in RISC-V Unprivileged ISA Specification ↗ RISC-V ISA Manual

Description

JAL (Jump and Link) adds the sign-extended J-immediate (encoded in multiples of 2 bytes) to the PC of the JAL instruction to form the jump target, stores PC+4 into rd as a return address, then jumps. Plain unconditional jumps use rd=x0.

Operation

R[rd] = PC + 4; PC += sext(offset);