International Business Machines Corporation

Christopher A Krygowski

Fadi Y Busaba

Steven R Carlough

Chung-Lung K Shum

Brian Robert Prasky

John G Rell, Jr

Timothy John Slegel

Eric M Schwarz

David S Hutton

Sheryll H Veneracion

Bruce C Giamei

Mark Anthony Check

Edward Thomas Malley

Klaus J Getzlaff

Jeffrey S Plate

Eli Almog

Mark S Farrell

Patrick M West, Jr

John Stephen Liptay

Wen H Li

Kai Oliver Weber

Dean G Bair

Michael P Mullen

Oz Dov Hershkovitz

Olaf Knute Hendrickson

Wei-Yi Xiao

Vimal M Kapadia

David F McManigal

Frank Tanzi

Chung-Iung K Shum

Resources in a computing environment are managed, for example, by a hardware controller controlling dispatching of resources from one or more pools of resources to be used in execution of threads. The controlling includes conditionally dispatching resources from the pool(s) to one or more low-priority threads of the computing environment based on current usage of resources in the pool(s) relative to an associated resource usage threshold. The management further includes monitoring resource dispatching from the pool(s) to one or more high-priority threads of the computing environment, and based on the monitoring, dynamically adjusting the resource usage threshold used in the conditionally dispatching of resources from the pool(s) to the low-priority thread(s).

Management of resources within a computing environment

Embodiments of the invention relate to dynamically routing instructions to execution units based on detected errors in the execution units. An aspect of the invention includes a computer system including a processor having an instruction issue unit and a plurality of execution units. The processor is configured to detect an error in a first execution unit among the plurality of execution units and adjust instruction dispatch rules of the instruction issue unit based on detecting the error in the first execution unit to restrict access to the first execution unit while leaving un-restricted access to the remaining execution units of the plurality of execution units.

Dynamic accessing of execution elements through modification of issue rules

Embodiments relate to prefetching data on a chip having a scout core and a parent core coupled to the scout core. A method includes determining that a program executed by the parent core requires content stored in a location remote from the parent core. The method includes sending a fetch table address determined by the parent core to the scout core. The method includes accessing a fetch table that is indicated by the fetch table address by the scout core. The fetch table indicates how many of pieces of content are to be fetched by the scout core and a location of the pieces of content. The method includes based on the fetch table indicating, fetching the pieces of content by the scout core. The method includes returning the fetched pieces of content to the parent core.

Anticipated prefetching for a parent core in a multi-core chip

Embodiments relate to prefetching data on a chip having a scout core and a parent core coupled to the scout core. The method includes determining that a program executed by the parent core requires content stored in a location remote from the parent core. The method includes sending a fetch table address determined by the parent core to the scout core. The method includes accessing a fetch table that is indicated by the fetch table address by the scout core. The fetch table indicates how many of pieces of content are to be fetched by the scout core and a location of the pieces of content. The method includes based on the fetch table indicating, fetching the pieces of content by the scout core. The method includes returning the fetched pieces of content to the parent core.

Embodiments relate to confidence threshold-based opposing path execution for branch prediction. An aspect includes determining a branch prediction for a first branch instruction that is encountered during execution of a first thread, wherein the branch prediction indicates a primary path and an opposing path for the first branch instruction. Another aspect includes executing the primary path by the first thread. Another aspect includes determining a confidence of the branch prediction and comparing the confidence of the branch prediction to a confidence threshold. Yet another aspect includes, based on the confidence of the branch prediction being less than the confidence threshold, starting a second thread that executes the opposing path of the first branch instruction, wherein the second thread is executed in parallel with the first thread.

Confidence threshold-based opposing branch path execution for branch prediction

Major branch instructions are provided that enable execution of a computer program to branch from one segment of code to another segment of code. These instructions also create a new stream of processing at the other segment of code enabling execution of the other segment of code to be performed in parallel with the segment of code from which the branch was taken. In one example, the other stream of processing starts a transaction for processing instructions of the other stream of processing.

Major branch instructions

Major branch instructions with transactional memory

A verification method is provided and includes randomly choosing a hardware executed instruction in a predefined program to force Opcode Compare on, determining an identity of a corresponding opcode from the chosen instruction and initializing Opcode Compare logic to trap the chosen instruction to firmware and creating firmware to initiate performance of hardware verification in the firmware and re-initiating performance of the hardware verification in hardware.

Firmware and hardware verification using Opcode comparison

A computer system includes a simultaneous multi-threading processor and memory in operable communication with the processor. The processor is configured to perform a method including running multiple threads simultaneously, detecting a hardware error in one or more hardware structures of the processing circuit, and identifying one or more victim threads of the multiple threads. The processor is further configured to identify a plurality of hardware structures associated with execution of the one or more victim threads, isolate the one or more victim threads from the rest of the multiple threads by preventing access to the plurality of hardware structures by the multiple threads, flush the one or more victim threads by resetting hardware states of the plurality of hardware structures, and restore the one or more victim threads by restoring the plurality of hardware structures to a known safe state.

Hardware recovery in multi-threaded processor

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Lagrangeville, NY, United States of America

Christopher A Krygowski