For more generic meanings of input/output port, see port (computing).

Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) and port I/O (also called port-mapped I/O or PMIO) are two complementary methods of performing input/output between the CPU and I/O devices in a computer.

Memory-mapped I/O uses the same bus to address both memory and I/O devices, and the CPU instructions used to read and write to memory are also used in accessing I/O devices. In order to accommodate the I/O devices, areas of CPU addressable space must be reserved for I/O rather than memory. This does not have to be permanent, for example the Commodore 64 could bank switch between its I/O devices and regular memory. The I/O devices monitor the CPU's address bus and respond to any CPU access of their assigned address space, mapping the address to their hardware registers.

Port-mapped I/O uses a special class of CPU instructions specifically for performing I/O. This is generally found on Intel microprocessors, specifically the IN and OUT instructions which can read and write a single byte to an I/O device. I/O devices have a separate address space from general memory, either accomplished by an extra "I/O" pin on the CPU's physical interface, or an entire bus dedicated to I/O.

Relative merits of the two I/O methods

The main advantage of using port-mapped I/O is on CPUs with a limited addressing capability. Because port-mapped I/O separates I/O access from memory access, the full address space can be used for memory. It is also obvious to a person reading an assembly language program listing when I/O is being performed, due to the special instructions that can only be used for that purpose.

The advantage of using memory mapped I/O is that, by discarding the extra complexity that port I/O brings, a CPU requires less internal logic and is thus cheaper, faster and easier to build; this follows the basic tenets of reduced instruction set computing. As 16-bit CPU architectures have become obsolete and replaced with 32-bit and 64-bit architectures in general use, reserving space on the memory map for I/O devices is no longer a problem. The fact that regular memory instructions are used to address devices also means that all of the CPU's addressing modes are available for the I/O as well as memory.

With the popularisation of higher-level programming languages such as C and Lisp, which do not support generation of the special port-mapped I/O instructions without incompatible and proprietary extensions, port-mapped I/O has become remarkably cumbersome to use. Contrast this situation with when assembly language was dominant and port-mapped I/O instructions simplified the code.

See also

• Java 1.4's New I/O, or NIO provides memory-mapped I/O.