Arm Limited

Schlumberger Technology Corporation

Other

Westerngeco L.l.p.

Convergence Pharmaceuticals Limited

Westerngeco Seismic Holdings Limited

Michael John Williams

John Michael Horley

Richard Roy Grisenthwaite

Simon John Craske

Andrew Brookfield Swaine

Edmond John Simon Ashfield

Paul Kimelman

Alasdair Grant

Thomas Sean Houlihane

Stephan Diestelhorst

Sheldon James Woodhouse

Thomas Christopher Grocutt

Andrew Christopher Rose

Nigel John Stephens

Gary Martin Oddie

Anitha Kona

François Christopher Jacques Botman

Peter Logan Harrod

Katherine Elizabeth Kneebone

Sheshadri Kalkunte

Stephen Richard George Flew

Sigurdur Vidar Jonsson

Xiao Lin Zhang

Stuart David Biles

Michael Filippo

Hazim Shafi

Daniel Kershaw

Matthew James Horsnell

Graeme Peter Barnes

Alastair David Reid

Yun Ma

William F Kiesman

David Witty

Michael John Gibbs

Eugene D Ovnicek

Conrado Blasco Allue

Michel V Berard

Loïc Pierron

Nebojsa Makljenovic

Damien Robin Martin

David MacPherson

Andrew John Merritt

David Kevin Hart

Mark Salling Rutland

Tamera L Mack

Clément Marc Demongeot

Clive Richard Jones

Uma Maheswari Ramalingam

Ian William Spray

David J Nicholls

Mark S Spriggs

Tfm Head

Shaoyong Su

Jon Andrew Rijk

Gerard Giblin

Donald Walker

Tamera Mack

Processing circuitry performs data processing operations in response to instructions fetched from a cache or memory or micro-operations decoded from the instructions. Sampling circuitry selects a subset of instructions or micro-operations as sampled operations to be profiled. Profiling circuitry captures, in response to processing of an instruction or micro-operation selected as a sampled operation, a sample record specifying an operation type of the sampled operation and information about behaviour of the sampled operation which is directly attributed to the sampled operation. The profiling circuitry can include, in the sample record for a sampled operation corresponding to a given instruction, a reference instruction address indicator indicative of an address of a reference instruction appearing earlier or later in program order than the given instruction, for which control flow is sequential between any instructions occurring between the reference instruction and the given instruction in program order.

Profiling of sampled operations processed by processing circuitry

A data processing apparatus and method having processing circuitry, and trace circuitry having a trace buffer; write pointer storage, and a call depth counter, wherein the trace circuitry generates trace data processing first event activities: modify the call depth counter in a first direction, store first trace data indicative of the first event, and modify the write pointer to point to a next location in the trace buffer; in response to a second event, when the call depth counter is not equal to a threshold call depth, to: modify the call depth counter direction and the write pointer to point to a previous location in the trace buffer; and in response to the second event, when the call depth counter is equal to the threshold call depth, to store second trace data indicative of the second event in the trace buffer at the current location.

Apparatus and method for collecting trace data

Statistical sampling of diagnostic data within an apparatus for processing datais performed based upon sample interval monitoring and address monitoring. A program instruction has its diagnostic data stored when it meets a sample interval criteria and an address match criteria. The address match may correspond to an instruction address of the program instruction or a target address to be read or written by the program instruction.

Diagnostic data capture

Data processing apparatuses and methods of data processing are disclosed wherein a processing element maintains a buffer in the memory in support of the data processing it performs. A write pointer indicates a current write location in the buffer. A cache holds copies of the data which are subject to the data processing operations and allocations into the cache from the memory and write-backs from the cache to the memory are performed in cache line units of data. When the processing element performs a data write to the buffer at a location determined by the write pointer, the processor updates the write pointer in an update direction corresponding to a progression direction of data writes in the buffer, and further locations in the progression direction in the buffer between the location indicated by the write pointer and a boundary location are signalled to be written with a predetermined value.

Writing beyond a pointer

A technique for collecting state information of an apparatus comprising a processing pipeline for executing a sequence of instructions, and interesting instruction designation circuitry for identifying at least one of the instructions in the sequence as being an interesting instruction. Each interesting instruction is an instruction for which given state information of the apparatus associated with execution of that interesting instruction is to be collected. The interesting instruction designation circuitry is arranged, for each identified interesting instruction, to apply defined selection criteria to determine a further instruction later in the sequence of instructions than the interesting instruction, and to mark that further instruction as having a synchronous exception associated therewith. The processing pipeline is responsive to the further instruction, which causes the processing pipeline to execute a given exception handling routine in order to collect the given state information.

Technique for collecting state information of an apparatus

A non-linear dynamic process such as multiphase flow is characterized to determine a condition of the process. A sensor may obtain information about strain, vibration, flow rate, etc. during the process. That sensor data may be plotted, and at least one perceptual hash can be generated from the plot. The perceptual hash can be compared against a database storing plots or hashes for non-linear dynamic responses for different sensor types or processes. A best fit hash may be identified and used to determine what conditions are occurring in the field, or multiple near fits can define an envelope of experimental/reference conditions with similar non-linear dynamics to the field system. Multiple hash comparisons may be used to refine the envelope, determine a best fit, or determine what measurement would help discriminate the flow conditions.

Dynamic systems and processes for determining a condition thereof

An apparatus and method are provided for generating and processing a trace stream indicative of instruction execution by processing circuitry. An apparatus has an input interface for receiving instruction execution information from the processing circuitry indicative of a sequence of instructions executed by the processing circuitry, and trace generation circuitry for generating from the instruction execution information a trace stream comprising a plurality of trace elements indicative of execution by the processing circuitry of instruction flow changing instructions within the sequence. The sequence may include a branch behaviour setting instruction that indicates an identified instruction within the sequence, where execution of the branch behaviour setting instruction enables a branch behaviour to be associated with the identified instruction that causes the processing circuitry to branch to a target address identified by the branch behaviour setting instruction when the identified instruction is encountered in the sequence. The trace generation circuitry is further arranged to generate, from the instruction execution information, a trace element indicative of execution behaviour of the branch behaviour setting instruction, and a trace element to indicate that the branch behaviour has been triggered on encountering the identified instruction within the sequence. This enables a very efficient form of trace stream to be used even in situations where the instruction sequence executed by the processing circuitry includes such branch behaviour setting instructions.

Apparatus and method for generating and processing a trace stream indicative of instruction execution by processing circuitry

Apparatus for data processing and a method of data processing are provided. Data processing operations are performed in response to data processing instructions. An error exception condition is set if a data processing operation has not been successful. It is determined if an error memory barrier condition exists and an error memory barrier procedure is performed in dependence on whether the error memory barrier condition exists. The error memory barrier procedure comprises, if the error exception condition is set and if an error mask condition is set: setting a deferred error exception condition and clearing the error exception condition.

Deferred system error exception handling in a data processing apparatus

To access metadata when debugging a device, debug access port circuitry including a debug interface receives commands from a debugger, and a bus interface coupled to a bus enables the debugger to access a memory system of the device. The device operates on data granules having associated metadata items, and the bus interface enables communication of both the data granules and the metadata items over the bus. The debug access port circuitry has storage elements accessible via the commands issued from the debugger, such that the accesses performed within the memory system via the bus interface are controlled in dependence on the storage elements accessed by the commands. A metadata storage element stores metadata items, and the debug access port circuitry is responsive to a command from the debugger to perform a memory direct access to transfer metadata items between the metadata storage element and the memory system.

Apparatus and method for accessing metadata when debugging a device

Data processing apparatus comprises vector processing circuitry to selectively apply vector processing operations defined by vector processing instructions to generate one or more data elements of a data vector comprising a plurality of data elements at respective data element positions of the data vector, according to the state of respective predicate flags associated with the positions of the data vector; and generator circuitry to generate instruction sample data indicative of processing activities of the vector processing circuitry for selected ones of the vector processing instructions, instruction sample data indicating at least the state of the predicate flags at execution of the selected vector processing instructions.

Data processing

A method of characterizing a subterranean geologic formation's response to hydraulic fracturing is presented. The method includes acquiring data representing a plurality of seismic events caused by hydraulic fracturing of the subterranean geologic formation, determining, by at least one electronic processor, a plurality of seismic event moment magnitudes for respective seismic events in the plurality of seismic events, estimating, by at least one electronic processor, a first parameter representing a negative slope of a line relating seismic event frequency to seismic event magnitude for at least some of the plurality of seismic events, estimating, by at least one electronic processor, a second parameter representing an axis intercept of the line, and characterizing the subterranean geologic formation based at least in part on the first parameter and the second parameter

Reservoir deformation estimation

An apparatus and method are provided to control assertion of a trigger signal to processing circuitry. The apparatus has evaluation circuitry to receive program instruction execution information indicative of a program instruction executed by the processing circuitry, which is arranged to perform an evaluation operation to determine with reference to evaluation information whether the program instruction execution information indicates presence of a trigger condition. Trigger signal generation circuitry is used to assert a trigger signal to the processing circuitry in dependence on whether the trigger condition is determined to be present. Further, filter circuitry is arranged to receive event information indicative of at least one event occurring within the processing circuitry, and is arranged to determine with reference to filter control information and that event information whether a qualifying condition is present. The filter circuitry is arranged, on determining that the qualifying condition is not present, to prevent the presence of the trigger condition being notified to the trigger signal generation circuitry. This allows the monitoring of particular program instruction execution behaviour to be qualified so that the processing circuitry is only notified if in addition a qualifying event is determined to be present.

Apparatus and method for controlling assertion of a trigger signal to processing circuitry

A data processing apparatus is provided that includes monitor circuitry to produce local trace data indicating behaviour of the data processing apparatus. Interface circuitry communicates with a second data processing apparatus and encoding circuitry produces an encoded instruction to cause the local trace data to be stored in storage circuitry of the second data processing apparatus or to be output at output circuitry of the second data processing apparatus. The interface circuitry transmits the encoded instruction to the second data processing apparatus.

Trace data

In an apparatus performing multi-threaded data processing event handling circuitry receives event information from the data processing circuitry indicative of an event which has occurred during the data processing operations. Visibility configuration storage holds a set of visibility configuration values, each visibility configuration value associated with a thread of the multiple threads and the event handling circuitry adapts its use of the event information to restrict visibility of the event information for software of threads other than the thread which generated the event information when a visibility configuration value for the thread which generated the event information has a predetermined value. This allows multi-threaded event monitoring to be supported, whilst protecting event information from a particular thread for which it is desired to limit its visibility to software of other threads.

Event monitoring in a multi-threaded data processing apparatus

A technique is provided for accessing metadata when debugging a program to be executed on processing circuitry. The processing circuitry operates on data formed of data granules having associated metadata items. A method of operating a debugger is provided that comprises controlling the performance of metadata access operations when the debugger decides to access a specified number of metadata items. In particular, the specified number is such that the metadata access operation needs to be performed by the processing circuitry multiple times in order to access the specified number of metadata items. Upon deciding to access a specified number of metadata items, the debugger issues at least one command to cause the processing circuitry to perform a plurality of instances of the metadata access operation in order to access at least a subset of the specified number of metadata items. The number of metadata items accessed by each instance of the metadata access operation is non-deterministic by the debugger from the metadata access operation. However, the at least one command is such that the plurality of instances of the metadata access operation are performed by the processing circuitry without the debugger interrogating the processing circuitry between each instance of the metadata access operation to determine progress in the number of metadata items accessed. Such an approach can significantly improve the efficiency of performing such accesses to metadata items under debugger control.

Method of accessing metadata when debugging a program to be executed on processing circuitry

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Ely, United Kingdom

Michael John Williams