Optimum Semiconductor Technologies Inc.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Murugappan Senthilvelan

Mayan Moudgill

C John Glossner

Gary J Nacer

Pablo Balzola

Paul Hurtley

Arthur Joseph Hoane

Vitaly Kalashnikov

A Joseph Hoane

Sitij Agrawal

Paul Gerard D'Arcy

Shenghong Wang

Sabin Daniel Iancu

Umesh Srikantiah

Tak-po Li

Arthur J Hoane

Sabin D Iancu

Vaidyanathan Thevangudi Ramadurai

A processor includes a register file comprising a length register, a vector register file comprising a plurality of vector registers, a mask register file comprising a plurality of mask registers, and a vector instruction execution circuit to execute a masked vector instruction comprising a first length register identifier representing the length register, a first vector register identifier representing a first vector register of the vector register file, and a first mask register identifier representing a first mask register of the mask register file, wherein the length register is to store a length value representing a number of operations to be applied to data elements stored in the first vector register, the first mask register is to store a plurality of mask bits, and a first mask bit of the plurality of mask bits determines whether a corresponding first one of the operations causes an effect.

System and method to implement masked vector instructions

A computer processor comprising a vector unit is disclosed. The vector unit may comprise a vector register file comprising at least one register to hold a varying number of elements. The vector unit may further comprise a vector length register file comprising at least one register to specify the number of operations of a vector instruction to be performed on the varying number of elements in the at least one register of the vector register file. The computer processor may be implemented as a monolithic integrated circuit.

Monolithic vector processor configured to operate on variable length vectors using a vector length register

A computer processor may include a plurality of hardware threads. The computer processor may further include state processor logic for a state of a hardware thread. The state processor logic may include per thread logic that contains state that is replicated in each hardware thread of the plurality of hardware threads and common logic that is independent of each hardware thread of the plurality of hardware threads. The computer processor may further include single threaded mode logic to execute instructions in a single threaded mode from only one hardware thread of the plurality of hardware threads. The computer processor may further include second mode logic to execute instructions in a second mode from more than one hardware thread of the plurality of hardware threads simultaneously. The computer processor may further include switching mode logic to switch between the first mode and the second mode.

Processor with mode support

A computer processor is disclosed. The computer processor comprise a vector unit comprising a vector register file comprising at least one vector register to hold a varying number of elements. The computer processor further comprises out-of-order issue logic that holds a pool of vector instructions, selects a vector instruction from the pool, and sends the vector instruction for execution. The vector instruction operates on the varying number of elements of the at least one vector register.

Vector processor to operate on variable length vectors with out-of-order execution

A computer processor with an address register file is disclosed. The computer processor may include a memory. The computer processor may further include a general purpose register file comprising at least one general purpose register. The computer processor may further include an address register file comprising at least one address register. The computer processor may further include having access to the memory, the general purpose register file, and the address register file. The processing logic may execute a memory access instruction that accesses one or more memory locations in the memory at one or more corresponding addresses computed by retrieving the value of an address register of the at least one register of the address register file specified in the instruction and adding a displacement value encoded in the instruction.

Computer processor with address register file

A computer processor is disclosed. The computer processor comprises a vector unit comprising a vector register file comprising one or more registers to hold a varying number of elements. The computer processor further comprises processing logic configured to operate on the varying number of elements in the vector register file using one or more digital signal processing instructions. The computer processor may be implemented as a monolithic integrated circuit.

Vector processor configured to operate on variable length vectors using digital signal processing instructions

A computer processor is disclosed. The computer processor comprises one or more processor resources. The computer processor further comprises a plurality of hardware thread units coupled to the one or more processor resources. The computer processor may be configured to permit simultaneous access to the one or more processor resources by only a subset of hardware thread units of the plurality of hardware thread units. The number of hardware threads in the subset may be less than the total number of hardware threads of the plurality of hardware thread units.

Vector processor configured to operate on variable length vectors with asymmetric multi-threading

A computer processor that implements pre-translation of virtual addresses is disclosed. The computer processor may include a register file comprising one or more registers. The computer processor may include processing logic. The processing logic may receive a value to store in a register of one or more registers. The processing logic may store the value in the register. The processing logic may designate the received value as a virtual address, the virtual address having a corresponding virtual base page number. The processing logic may translate the virtual base page number to a corresponding real base page number and zero or more real page numbers corresponding to zero or more virtual page numbers adjacent to the virtual base page number. The processing logic may further store in the register of the one or more registers the real base page number and the zero or more real page numbers.

Computer processor that implements pre-translation of virtual addresses

A computer processor with register direct branches and employing an instruction preload structure is disclosed. The computer processor may include a hierarchy of memories comprising a first memory organized in a structure having one or more entries for one or more addresses corresponding to one or more instructions. The one or more entries of the one or more addresses may have a starting address. The structure may have one or more locations for storing the one or more instructions. The computer processor may include one or more registers to which one or more corresponding instruction addresses are writable. The computer processor may include processing logic. In response to the processing logic writing the one or more instruction addresses to the one or more registers, the processing logic may to pre-fetch the one or more instructions of a linear sequence of instructions from a first memory level of the hierarchy of memories into a second memory level of the hierarchy of memories beginning at the starting address. At least one address of the one or more addresses may be the contents of a register of the one or more registers.

Computer processor with register direct branches and employing an instruction preload structure

A computer processor is disclosed. The computer processor may comprise a vector unit comprising a vector register file comprising at least one register to hold a varying number of elements. The computer processor may further comprise processing logic configured to operate on the varying number of elements in the vector register file using one or more instructions that separate a vector or combine two vectors. The computer processor may be implemented as a monolithic integrated circuit.

Vector processor configured to operate on variable length vectors using instructions to combine and split vectors

A computer processor that implements pre-translation of virtual addresses with target registers is disclosed. The computer processor may include a register file comprising one or more registers. The computer processor may include processing logic. The processing logic may receive a value to store in a register of one or more registers. The processing logic may store the value in the register. The processing logic may designate the received value as a virtual instruction address, the virtual instruction address having a corresponding virtual base page number. The processing logic may translate the virtual base page number to a corresponding real base page number and zero or more real page numbers corresponding to zero or more virtual page numbers adjacent to the virtual base page number. The processing logic may further store in the register of the one or more registers the real base page number and the zero or more real page numbers.

Computer processor that implements pre-translation of virtual addresses with target registers

A chaining bit decoder of a computer processor receives an instruction stream. The chaining bit decoder selects a group of instructions from the instruction stream. The chaining bit decoder extracts a designated bit from each instruction of the instruction stream to produce a sequence of chaining bits. The chaining bit decoder decodes the sequence of chaining bits. The chaining bit decoder identifies zero or more instruction stream dependencies among the selected group of instructions in view of the decoded sequence of chaining bits. The chaining bit decoder outputs control signals to cause one or more pipelines stages of the processor to execute the selected group of instructions in view of the identified zero or more instruction stream dependencies among the group sequence of instructions.

Method and apparatus for enabling a processor to generate pipeline control signals

A processing device identifies a set of software threads having instructions waiting to issue. For each software thread in the set of the software threads, the processing device binds the software thread to an available hardware context in a set of hardware contexts and stores an identifier of the available hardware context bound to the software thread to a next available entry in an ordered list. The processing device reads an identifier stored in an entry of the ordered list. Responsive to an instruction associated with the identifier having no dependencies with any other instructions among the instructions waiting to issue, the processing device issues the instruction waiting to issue to the hardware context associated with the identifier.

Multithreading using an ordered list of hardware contexts

A method for providing at least one sequence of values to a plurality of processors is described. In the method, a sequence generator from one or more sequence generators is associated with a memory location. The sequence generator is configured to generate the at least one sequence of values. One or more read accesses of the memory location are enabled by a processor from the plurality of processors. In response to enabling the read access, the sequence generator is executed so that it returns a first value from the sequence of values to the processor. After executing the sequence generator, the sequence generator is advanced so that the next access generates a second value from the sequence of values. The second value is sequentially subsequent to the first value.

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Carmel, NY, United States of America

Murugappan Senthilvelan