International Business Machines Corporation

Brandon R Goddard

Dung Q Nguyen

Steven J Battle

Joshua W Bowman

Brian David Barrick

Susan Elizabeth Eisen

Khandker Nabil Adeeb

Salma Ayub

Cliff Kucharski

Tu-An T Nguyen

Christopher M Mueller

Brendan M Wong

Brian D Victor

Nicholas R Orzol

David S Walder

Jamory Hawkins

Jeffrey Carl Brownscheidle

Thao T Doan

A computer system, processor, and method for processing information is disclosed that includes reading out a plurality of entries in a history buffer prior to initiating a flush recovery process; initiating the flush recovery process; determining which of the history buffer entries read out of the history buffer should be recovered; and sending information associated with the history buffer entries to be recovered to one or more history buffer recovery ports. In one or more embodiments, the history buffer entries are continually read out in response to a processor and history buffer entries read out from the history buffer are directed to a specific history buffer recovery port associated with a mapper of a specific logical register.

Steering a history buffer entry to a specific recovery port during speculative flush recovery lookup in a processor

A computer system, processor, and method for processing information is disclosed that includes partitioning a logical register in the processor into a plurality of ranges of logical register entries based upon the logical register entry, assigning at least one recovery port of a history buffer to each range of logical register entries, initiating a flush recovery process for the processor, and directing history buffer entries to the assigned recovery port based upon the logical register entry associated with the history buffer entry.

Logical register recovery within a processor

A computer system, processor, and method for processing information is disclosed that includes at least one computer processor, a register file associated with the at least one processor, preferably a condition register that stores status information, the register file having multiple locations for storing data, multiple ports to write data to and read data from the register file. The system or processor includes an execution area, and the processor is configured to read from all the read ports in a first cycle, and to read from all the read ports in a second cycle. In an embodiment, the execution area includes a staging latch to store data from a first cycle read operation, and in an aspect the computer system is configured to combine the data stored in the staging latch during a first read cycle with the data read from the second cycle.

Fused overloaded register file read to enable 2-cycle move from condition register instruction in a microprocessor

A method, processor and/or system for processing data is disclosed that in an aspect includes providing a physical register file with one or more register file entries for storing data; identifying each physical register file entry with a row identifier to identify the entry row in the physical register file; enabling one or more columns within a target entry row of the physical register file; and revising data in the columns enabled within the target entry row of the physical register file. In an aspect, each physical register file entry is partitioned into a plurality of columns having a bit width and a column mask preferably is used to enable the one or more columns within the target row of the physical register file, and data is revised in only the columns enabled by the column mask.

System and handling of register data in processors

Recovering microprocessor logical register values by: partitioning a register mapper by logical register type; providing a plurality of recovery ports; assigning a logical register type to a recovery port; receiving a restore required instruction; and mapping SRB (save and restore buffer) values to the register mapper by logical register type.

Supporting speculative microprocessor instruction execution

An aspect includes receiving a flush request at a processing unit that is in a current state defined by contents of registers in a register file. The processing unit includes a plurality of slices and the flush request includes an identifier of a previously issued instruction. The processing unit is restored to a previous state defined by contents of the registers in the register file prior to the previously issued instruction being issued. The restoring includes searching previous state buffers in at least two of the plurality of slices to locate data describing the contents of the registers in the register file prior to the previously issued instruction being issued. The restoring also includes combining the located data to generate results of the searching and updating the contents of the registers in the register file using a single port based at least in part on the results.

High bandwidth logical register flush recovery

A method, processor and system for processing data is disclosed that includes evicting one or more evicted fields from a logical register mapper; receiving, by a history buffer, the one or more evicted fields from the logical register mapper; determining whether two or more of the evicted fields from the mapper qualify to be written to a single entry in the history buffer; and in response to the two or more evicted fields qualifying, writing the two or more qualifying evicted fields received from the mapper to a single entry in the qualified history buffer. The method, processor, and/or system further includes in an embodiment, remapping the one or more qualified evicted fields, and further, in response to the two or more evicted fields not qualifying to be written to a single entry in the history buffer, writing the two or more evicted fields to multiple history buffer entries.

A computer system, processor, and method for processing information is disclosed that includes at least one computer processor for processing instructions, the processor having a history buffer having a plurality of entries for storing information associated with a processor instruction evicted from a logical register, the history buffer having at least one recovery port; a logical register mapper for recovering information from the history buffer, the mapper having restore ports to recover information from the history buffer; and a restore multiplexor configured to receive as inputs information from one or more of the history buffer recovery ports, and configured to output information to one or more of the logical register mapper restore ports. The processor, system and/or method configured to improve flush recovery bandwidth.

Flush-recovery bandwidth in a processor

Operation of a multi-slice processor that includes a plurality of execution slices. Operation of such a multi-slice processor includes: receiving a first instruction indicating a first target register; receiving a second instruction indicating the first target register as a source operand; responsive to the second instruction indicating the first target register as a source operand, updating a dependent count corresponding to the first instruction; and issuing, in dependence upon the dependent count for the first instruction being greater than a dependent count for another instruction, the first instruction to an execution slice of the plurality of execution slices.

Operation of a multi-slice processor implementing dependency accumulation instruction sequencing

Operation of a multi-slice processor that includes a plurality of execution slices and a plurality of load/store slices, where the load/store slices are coupled to the execution slices via a results bus. Operation of such a multi-slice processor includes: capturing first state information corresponding to a first set of control signals; monitoring state information of a plurality of logical components of the multi-slice processor; selecting, in dependence upon one or more selection criteria and upon the monitored state information, a second set of control signals; and capturing second state information corresponding to the second set of control signals, wherein the first set of control signals is different than the second set of control signals.

Operation of a multi-slice processor implementing adaptive failure state capture

Systems, methods, and apparatuses to perform an operation comprising receiving an indication of a first error in a processor, identifying a first control signal, of a plurality of control signals in a debug bus, associated with the error, wherein each of the plurality of control signals are coupled to one of a plurality of input ports of a multiplexer, and changing a configuration state of the multiplexer to output the first control signal to a trace array.

Growing community of inventors

Friendswood, TX, United States of America

Brandon R Goddard