The TPI access layer is responsible for handling the communication with the external programmer. The communication is based on message format, where each message comprises an instruction followed by one or more byte-sized operands. The instruction is always sent by the external programmer but operands are sent either by the external programmer or by the TPI access layer, depending on the type of instruction issued.
The TPI access layer controls the character transfer direction on the TPI physical layer. It also handles the recovery from the error state after exception.
The Control and Status Space (CSS) of the Tiny Programming Interface is allocated for control and status registers in the TPI access Layer. The CSS consist of registers directly involved in the operation of the TPI itself. These register are accessible using the SLDCS and SSTCS instructions.
The access layer can also access the data space, either directly or indirectly using the Pointer Register (PR) as the address pointer. The data space is accessible using the SLD, SST, SIN and SOUT instructions. The address pointer can be stored in the Pointer Register using the SLDPR instruction.