Imagination Technologies Limited

Nordic Semiconductor Asa

David William Knox

Adrian John Anderson

Michael John Davis

A technique for efficient calling of functions on a processor generates an executable program having a function call by analysing an interface for the function that defines an argument expression and an internal value used solely within the function, and an argument declaration defining an argument value to be provided to the function when the program is run. A data structure is generated including the internal value and a resolved argument value derived from the argument expression and the argument value. A single instruction is encoded in the program to utilise the data structure. When the program is executed on a processor, the single instruction causes the processor to load the argument value and internal value from the data structure into registers in the processor, prior to evaluating the function. The function can then be executed without further register loads being performed.

Function evaluation using multiple values loaded into registers by a single instruction

A computer system comprises a processor () configured to respond to events from a plurality of sources, and a prioritisation module () implemented in hardware and configured to prioritise the events for the processor. The prioritisation module comprises one or more decision modules () comprising multiple, prioritised inputs () configured to receive respective event flags relating to events from respective sources. The decision module stores a source identifier of the source corresponding to the highest priority asserted event flag. The processor can read the stored source identifier to identify the source of an event to which the processor is to respond. In this way, the decision as to which event a processor should respond to next is offloaded from the processor and implemented in hardware in the prioritisation module. This can reduce the workload of the processor and thereby result in a more efficient computer system.

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David William Knox