Texas Instruments Corporation

Joseph R Zbiciak

Timothy David Anderson

Duc Quang Bui

Kai Chirca

Matthew D Pierson

Abhijeet Ashok Chachad

Dheera Balasubramanian

David Matthew Thompson

Todd T Hahn

Mel Alan Phipps

Naveen Bhoria

Ramakrishnan Venkatasubramanian

Son Hung Tran

Soujanya Narnur

Sahithi Krishna

Daniel Brad Wu

David J Hoyle

Amitabh Menon

Alok Anand

Sureshkumar Govindaraj

Sajish Sajayan

Brett L Huber

Mujibur Rahman

Reid E Tatge

Ashish Rai Shrivastava

Eric J Stotzer

Gary L Swoboda

Alan Davis

Raguram Damodaran

Lewis Nardini

Jose Luis Flores

Dheera Balasubramanian Samudrala

David E Smith

Elana D Granston

Due Quang Bui

Min Wang

Jason Lynn Peck

Natarajan Kurian Seshan

Jagadeesh Sankaran

David A Comisky

Steven D Krueger

Jeremiah E Golston

Jonathan (Son) Hung Tran

Sudhakar Surendran

Sreenivas Kothandaraman

Richard H Scales

Roger Kyle Castille

Alan S Ward

Marco Lazar

Marcus Alan Gilbert

The number of registers required is reduced by overlapping scalar and vector registers. This allows increased compiler flexibility when mixing scalar and vector instructions. Local register read ports are reduced by restricting read access. Dedicated predicate registers reduce requirements for general registers, and allows reduction of critical timing paths by allowing the predicate registers to be placed next to the predicate unit.

Register file structures combining vector and scalar data with global and local accesses

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces address of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. Upon a stream break instruction specifying one of the nested loops, the stream engine ends a current iteration of the loop. If the specified loop was not the outermost loop, the streaming engine begins an iteration of a next outer loop. If the specified loop was the outermost nested loop, the streaming engine ends the stream. The streaming engine places a vector of data elements in order in lanes within a stream head register. A stream break instruction is operable upon a vector break.

Streaming engine with early exit from loop levels supporting early exit loops and irregular loops

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces address of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to operational units for use as operands. A promotion unit optionally increases date element data size by an integral power of 2 either zero filing or sign filling the additional bits. A decimation unit optionally decimates data elements by an integral factor of 2. For ease of implementation the promotion factor must be greater than or equal to the decimation factor.

Stream engine with element promotion and decimation modes

Disclosed embodiments relate to a streaming engine employed in, for example, a digital signal processor. A fixed data stream sequence including plural nested loops is specified by a control register. The streaming engine includes an address generator producing addresses of data elements and a steam head register storing data elements next to be supplied as operands. The streaming engine fetches stream data ahead of use by the central processing unit core in a stream buffer. Parity bits are formed upon storage of data in the stream buffer which are stored with the corresponding data. Upon transfer to the stream head register a second parity is calculated and compared with the stored parity. The streaming engine signals a parity fault if the parities do not match. The streaming engine preferably restarts fetching the data stream at the data element generating a parity fault.

Streaming engine with error detection, correction and restart

A method for writing data to memory that provides for generation of a predicate to disable a portion of the elements so that only the enabled elements are written to memory. Such a method may be employed to write multi-dimensional data to memory and/or may be used with a streaming address generator.

System and method for predication handling

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces address of data elements for the nested loops. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. A stream template specifies loop count and loop dimension for each nested loop. A format definition field in the stream template specifies the number of loops and the stream template bits devoted to the loop counts and loop dimensions. This permits the same bits of the stream template to be interpreted differently enabling trade off between the number of loops supported and the size of the loop counts and loop dimensions.

Streaming engine with variable stream template format

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream. Once fetched data elements in the data stream are disposed in lanes in a stream head register in the fixed order. Some lanes may be invalid, for example when the number of remaining data elements are less than the number of lanes in the stream head register. The streaming engine automatically produces a valid data word stored in a stream valid register indicating lanes holding valid data. The data in the stream valid register may be automatically stored in a predicate register or otherwise made available. This data can be used to control vector SIMD operations or may be combined with other predicate register data.

Exposing valid byte lanes as vector predicates to CPU

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces address of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. The streaming engine stores an early address of next to be fetched data elements and a late address of a data element in the stream head register for each of the nested loops. The streaming engine stores an early loop counts of next to be fetched data elements and a late loop counts of a data element in the stream head register for each of the nested loops.

Streaming engine with early and late address and loop count registers to track architectural state

Techniques for accessing memory by a memory controller, comprising receiving, by the memory controller, a memory management command to perform a memory management operation at a virtual memory address, translating the virtual memory address to a physical memory address, wherein the physical memory address comprises an address within a cache memory, and outputting an instruction to the cache memory based on the memory management command and the physical memory address.

Multicore shared cache operation engine

A streaming engine employed in a digital signal processor specified a fixed data stream. Once started the data stream is read only and cannot be written. Once fetched, the data stream is stored in a first-in-first-out buffer for presentation to functional units in the fixed order. Data use by the functional unit is controlled using the input operand fields of the corresponding instruction. A read only operand coding supplies the data an input of the functional unit. A read/advance operand coding supplies the data and also advances the stream to the next sequential data elements. The read only operand coding permits reuse of data without requiring a register of the register file for temporary storage.

Data processing apparatus having streaming engine with read and read/advance operand coding

A system, method, and device are shown that are operable to transform and align a plurality of fields from an input to an output data stream using a multilayer butterfly or inverse butterfly network by selectably switching bit positions of the input data stream. In some examples, a device includes a first circuit configured to selectably switch bit positions of a first subset of the data stream with a second subset of the data stream and a second circuit configured to: selectably switch bit positions of a first subset of the first subset of the data stream with a second subset of the first subset of the data stream, and selectably switch bit positions of a first subset of the second subset of the data stream with a second subset of the second subset of the data stream.

Butterfly network on load data return

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces address of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. An element duplication unit optionally duplicates data element an instruction specified number of times. A vector masking unit limits data elements received from the element duplication unit to least significant bits within an instruction specified vector length. If the vector length is less than a stream head register size, the vector masking unit stores all 0's in excess lanes of the stream head register (group duplication disabled) or stores duplicate copies of the least significant bits in excess lanes of the stream head register.

Streaming engine with separately selectable element and group duplication

Techniques related to executing a plurality of instructions by a processor comprising receiving a first instruction for execution on an instruction execution pipeline, wherein the instruction execution pipeline is in a first execution mode, beginning execution of the first instruction on the instruction execution pipeline, receiving an execution mode instruction to switch the instruction execution pipeline to a second execution mode, switching the instruction execution pipeline to the second execution mode based on the received execution mode instruction, annulling the first instruction based on the execution mode instruction, receiving a second instruction for execution on the instruction execution pipeline, the second instruction, and executing the second instruction.

Entering protected pipeline mode with clearing

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces addresses of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. Stream metadata is stored in response to a stream store instruction. Stored stream metadata is restored to the stream engine in response to a stream restore instruction. An interrupt changes an open stream to a frozen state discarding stored stream data. A return from interrupt changes a frozen stream to an active state.

Streaming engine with stream metadata saving for context switching

A streaming engine employed in a digital signal processor specifies a fixed read only data stream. Once fetched the data stream is stored in two head registers for presentation to functional units in the fixed order. Data use by the functional unit is preferably controlled using the input operand fields of the corresponding instruction. A first read only operand coding supplies data from the first head register. A first read/advance operand coding supplies data from the first head register and also advances the stream to the next sequential data elements. Corresponding second read only operand coding and second read/advance operand coding operate similarly with the second head register. A third read only operand coding supplies double width data from both head registers.

Stream data unit with multiple head registers

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Arlington, TX, United States of America

Joseph R Zbiciak