In ARM state, 16 data registers and one or two status registers are accessible at any time. In privileged modes, mode-specific banked registers become available. Figure 2.10 shows the registers that are available in each mode.

Thumb and ThumbEE state give access to the same set of registers as ARM state. However, the 16-bit instructions provide only limited access to some of the registers. No such limitations exist for 32-bit Thumb-2 and ThumbEE instructions.

Registers r0 through r13 are general-purpose registers used to hold either data or address values.

Registers r14 and r15 have the following special functions:

One of the status registers, the Current Program Status Register (CPSR), contains condition code flags, status bits, and current mode bits.

In privileged modes, another register, one of the Saved Program Status Registers (SPSR), is accessible. This contains the condition code flags, status bits, and current mode bits saved as a result of the exception that caused entry to the current mode. Typically, this is used when returning after handling an exception.

Banked registers have a mode identifier that indicates the mode that they relate to. Table 2.9 shows these mode identifiers.

The usr mode identifier is usually omitted from register names. It is only used in descriptions where the User or System mode register is specifically accessed from another operating mode.

FIQ mode has seven banked registers mapped to r8-r14, that is, r8_fiq through r14_fiq. As a result many FIQ handlers do not have to save any registers.

The Monitor, Supervisor, Abort, IRQ, and Undefined modes have alternative mode-specific registers mapped to r13 and r14, that permits a private stack pointer and link register for each mode.

Figure 2.10 shows the ARM state registers.

Figure 2.11 shows an alternative view of the ARM registers.