International Business Machines Corporation

Motorola Corporation

Edward John Silha

Cathy May

Ronald Nick Kalla

James Allan Kahle

Francis Patrick O'Connell

Hung Qui Le

Frank Eliot Levine

Steven Mark Thurber

Richard Louis Arndt

Richard William Doing

Larry Wayne Loen

Kenichi Tsuchiya

Stephen Joseph Schwinn

Balaram Sinharoy

Naresh Nayar

Bradly George Frey

John Stephen Muhich

Christopher Michael Richardson

David Scott Ray

Shih-Hsiung Stephen Tung

Michael John Mayfield

Michael Joseph Corrigan

Gordon David McIntosh

John Barry Griswell, Jr

Eric Jason Fluhr

Albert Thomas Williams

Joaquin Hinojosa

Joel M Tendler

Paul LuVerne Godtland

Guy L Guthrie

Michael Stephen Floyd

Danny Marvin Neal

Brett Olsson

Kevin Franklin Reick

Michael Terrell Vanover

Keith E Diefendorff

Gus Wai-Yan Yeung

Michael D Snyder

Alongkorn Kitamorn

Andrew Henry Wottreng

Edward Hugh Welbon

Larry Edward Thatcher

Michael Joseph Carnevale

Pradeep Kumar Dubey

David R Willoughby

Bradley Gene Burgess

Ronald Ray Hochsprung

James O Nicholson

Martin Edward Hopkins

Hunter Ledbetter Scales, Iii

Albert Y Chang

Richard R Oehler

Virgil Anthony Albaugh

Dan Marvin Neal

John Anthony Moore

Scott Douglas Walton

Amy M Youngs

Bradford Byron Beavers

A processor, circuit and method provide for fast decryption of encrypted program instructions for execution by the processor. A programmable look-up coding is used to decode a field within the instructions. The decoded field for the instructions are recombined with the remaining portion of the same instructions to yield the decoded instructions. The programmable look-up coding can be programmed and controlled by a process executing at a higher privilege level than the program represented by the instructions, so that security against code-modifying attacks is enhanced.

Method for fast decryption of processor instructions

A method and apparatus in a data processing system for measuring events associated with the execution of instructions are provided. Instructions are received at a processor in the data processing system. If a selected indicator is associated with the instruction, counting of each event associated with the execution of the instruction is enabled. In some embodiments, the performance indicators, counters, thresholds, and other performance monitoring structures may be stored in a page table that is used to translate virtual addresses into physical storage addresses. A standard page table is augmented with additional fields for storing the performance monitoring structures. These structures may be set by the performance monitoring application and may be queried and modified as events occur that require access to physical storage.

Method and apparatus for maintaining performance monitoring structures in a page table for use in monitoring performance of a computer program

A method and apparatus for an independent operating system that prevents certain classes of computer attacks. Instruction decryption is performed on an existing instruction set for a processor. The processor architecture limits the impact on processor execution timing. The instruction execution timing is not altered in the processor core and any additional processing is overlapped into existing operations.

Method for fast decryption of processor instructions in an encrypted instruction power architecture

A method and processor for avoiding check stops in speculative accesses. An execution unit, e.g., load/store unit, may be coupled to a queue configured to store instructions. A register, coupled to the execution unit, may be configured to store a value corresponding to an address in physical memory. When the processor is operating in real mode, the execution unit may retrieve the value stored in the register. Upon the execution unit receiving a speculative instruction, e.g., speculative load instruction, from the queue, a determination may be made as to whether the address of the speculative instruction is at or below the retrieved value. If the address of the speculative instruction is at or below this value, then the execution unit may safely speculatively execute this instruction while avoiding a check stop since all the addresses at or below this value are known to exist in physical memory.

Mechanism for avoiding check stops in speculative accesses while operating in real mode

A method of prefetching data in a microprocessor includes identifying a data stream associated with a process and determining a depth associated with the data stream based upon prefetch factors including the number of currently concurrent data streams and data consumption rates associated with the concurrent data streams. Data prefetch requests are allocated with the data stream to reflect the determined depth of the data stream. Allocating data prefetch requests may include allocating prefetch requests for a number of cache lines away from the cache line currently being referenced, wherein the number of cache lines is equal to the determined depth. The method may include, responsive to determining the depth associated with a data stream, configuring prefetch hardware to reflect the determined depth for the identified data stream. Prefetch control bits in an instruction executed by the processor control the prefetch hardware configuration.

Data stream prefetching in a microprocessor

An apparatus and method selectively invalidate entries in an address translation cache instead of invalidating all, or nearly all, entries. One or more translation mode bits are provided in each entry in the address translation cache. These translation mode bits may be set according to the addressing mode used to create the cache entry. One or more 'hint bits' are defined in an instruction that allow specifying which of the entries in the address translation cache are selectively preserved during an invalidation operation according to the value(s) of the translation mode bit(s). In the alternative, multiple instructions may be defined to preserve entries in the address translation cache that have specified addressing modes. In this manner, more intelligence is used to recognize that some entries in the address translation cache may be valid after a task or partition switch, and may therefore be retained, while other entries are invalidated.

Selectively invalidating entries in an address translation cache

An apparatus and method selectively invalidate entries in an address translation cache instead of invalidating all, or nearly all, entries. One or more translation mode bits are provided in each entry in the address translation cache. These translation mode bits may be set according to the addressing mode used to create the cache entry. One or more 'hint bits' are defined in an instruction that allow specifying which of the entries in the address translation cache are selectively preserved during an invalidation operation according to the value(s) of the translation mode bit(s). In the alternative, multiple instructions may be defined to preserve entries in the address translation cache that have specified addressing modes. In this manner, more intelligence is used to recognize that some entries in the address translation cache may be valid after a task or partition switch, and may therefore be retained, while other entries in the address translation cache are invalidated.

Apparatus and method for selectively invalidating entries in an address translation cache

A processor supports logical partitioning of hardware resources including real address spaces of a computer system. An ultra-privileged supervisor process, called a hypervisor, regulates the logical partitions and can dynamically re-allocate resources. Preferably, the processor supports hardware multithreading, each thread independently capable of being in either hypervisor, supervisor, or problem state, and is capable of entering hypervisor state only upon occurrence of certain pre-defined events. A logical partition identifier is stored in a processor register, and can be altered by the processor only when in hypervisor state. Certain bus communications contain a logical partition identifier tag, and the processor ignores such communications if the tag does not match its own logical partition identifier in its register.

Apparatus for supporting a logically partitioned computer system

A method, apparatus, and computer implemented instructions for processing and recovering from soft errors in computer array with a parity error checking design in a data processing system. In response to an occurrence of a parity error, processor status information is stored to form stored processor information. A determination is made as to whether the parity error is a recoverable parity error using the stored processor information. In response to the parity error being a recoverable parity error, a recovery action is performed. The specific action taken varies depending on the type of error.

Method and apparatus for parity error recovery

A real address range check mechanism verifies real addresses generated in a computer system which translates real addresses from effective addresses, some of the effective addresses being real addresses not requiring translation. The system has at least two operating modes. In one mode, the range checking mechanism generates an error signal responsive to detecting a real address outside a predetermined range, and in the other operating mode no error signal is generated. Preferably, the computer system's hardware resources, including real address space, is logically partitioned, partitioning being managed by an ultra-privileged process called a hypervisor. Preferably, the processor supports hardware multithreading, each thread independently capable of being in either hypervisor, supervisor, or problem state, real address range checking error signals being disabled in the hypervisor state.

Applications of operating mode dependent error signal generation upon real address range checking prior to translation

A method, program, and system for modifying computer program instructions during execution of those instructions are provided. The invention comprises writing a first instruction into a memory location, wherein the instruction is a patch class instruction. This first instruction is then fetched from the memory location and executed. Concurrent with execution of the first instruction, the memory location is overwritten with a second instruction, which is also a patch class instruction. Because the first and second instructions are patch class instructions, if a program is executing from the memory location, or returns to execute from that location, it will fetch and execute either the first instruction or the second instruction. In one embodiment, reconciling the processor's execution pipeline with the memory location will ensure that the second instruction is fetched and executed if the program returns to execute from that location.

Limiting concurrent modification and execution of instructions to a particular type to avoid unexpected results

A method and apparatus for patching a problematic instruction within a pipelined processor in a data processing system is presented. A plurality of instructions are fetched, and the plurality of instructions are matched against at least one match condition to generate a matched instruction. The match conditions may include matching the opcode of an instruction, the pre-decode bits of an instruction, a type of instruction, or other conditions. A matched instruction may be marked using a match bit that accompanies the instruction through the instruction pipeline. The matched instruction is then replaced with an internal opcode or internal instruction that causes the instruction scheduling unit to take a special software interrupt. The problematic instruction is then patched through the execution of a set of instructions that cause the desired logical operation of the problematic instruction.

Method and apparatus for patching problematic instructions in a microprocessor using software interrupts

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Edward John Silha