Stretch, Inc.

Kenneth Mark Williams

Albert RenRui Wang

Scott David Johnson

Bruce Saylors McNamara

A system and method provide unaligned load/store functionality for a processor that supports only aligned load/store instructions. An exemplary embodiment includes an extension adapter including registers for storing data and load/store buffers for realigning data. A processor executes aligned load/store instructions that transfer data in multiples of bytes. Instructions are included for transferring data between memory and the load/store buffers, initializing and transferring data, initializing and transferring data in numbers of bits, advancing or offsetting a data pointer, and for flushing the load/store buffers. In a preferred embodiment, the extension adapter comprises a wide register file for buffering full words of data, load/store buffers formed from multiple single-bit registers for buffering data bits and streaming data for use by the processor, and address generators for pointing to data or memory addresses.

Instruction set for efficient bit stream and byte stream I/O

A method is provided for modifying a program written in a standard programming language so that when the program is compiled both an executable file is produced and an instruction is programmed into a programmable logic device of a processor system. The method includes identifying a critical code segment of a program, rewriting the critical code segment as a function, revising the program, and compiling the program. Revising the program includes designating the function as code to be compiled by an extension compiler and replacing the critical code segment of the program with a statement that calls the function. Compiling the program includes compiling the code with an extension compiler to produce a header file and the instruction for the programmable logic device. Compiling the program also includes using a standard compiler to compile the remainder of the program together with the header file to generate the executable file.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Mark Williams