Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Intel Corporation

Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

Rama S Gopal

Karthik Sundaram

Christopher D Bryant

Paul Edward Kitchin

James K Pickett

Michael A Filippo

Murali S Chinnakonda

Kevin Michael Lepak

Benjamin T Sander

Mitchell K Alsup

Roger Dwain Isaac

Arun Radhakrishnan

Brian C Grayson

A system and a method to cascade execution of instructions in a load-store unit (LSU) of a central processing unit (CPU) to reduce latency associated with the instructions. First data stored in a cache is read by the LSU in response a first memory load instruction of two immediately consecutive memory load instructions. Alignment, sign extension and/or endian operations are performed on the first data read from the cache in response to the first memory load instruction, and, in parallel, a memory-load address-forwarded result is selected based on a corrected alignment of the first data read in response to the first memory load instruction to provide a next address for a second of the two immediately consecutive memory load instructions. Second data stored in the cache is read by the LSU in response to the second memory load instruction based on the selected memory-load address-forwarded result.

Memory load to load fusing

According to one general aspect, a load unit may include a load circuit configured to load at least one piece of data from a memory. The load unit may include an alignment circuit configured to align the data to generate an aligned data. The load unit may also include a mathematical operation execution circuit configured to generate a resultant of a predetermined mathematical operation with the at least one piece of data as an operand. Wherein the load unit is configured to, if an active instruction is associated with the predetermined mathematical operation, bypass the alignment circuit and input the piece of data directly to the mathematical operation execution circuit.

Memory load and arithmetic load unit (ALU) fusing

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for using a shared page miss handler device to satisfy page miss requests of a plurality of devices in a multi-core system. One embodiment of such a method comprises receiving one or more page miss requests from one or more respective requesting devices of the plurality of devices in the multi-core system, and arbitrating to identify a first page miss requests of the one or more requesting devices A page table walk is performed to generate a physical address responsive to the first page miss request. Then the physical address is sent to the corresponding requesting device, or a fault is signaled to an operating system for the corresponding requesting device responsive to the first page miss request.

Multi-core shared page miss handler

According to one general aspect, an apparatus may include a cache pre-fetcher, and a pre-fetch scheduler. The cache pre-fetcher may be configured to predict, based at least in part upon a virtual address, data to be retrieved from a memory system. The pre-fetch scheduler may be configured to convert the virtual address of the data to a physical address of the data, and request the data from one of a plurality of levels of the memory system. The memory system may include a plurality of levels, each level of the memory system configured to store data.

Pre-fetch chaining

A Fill Buffer (FB) based data forwarding scheme that stores a combination of Virtual Address (VA), TLB (Translation Look-aside Buffer) entry# or an indication of a location of a Page Table Entry (PTE) in the TLB, and a TLB page size information in the FB and uses these values to expedite FB forwarding. Load (Ld) operations send their non-translated VA for an early comparison against the VA entries in the FB, and are then further qualified with the TLB entry# to determine a 'hit.' This hit determination is fast and enables FB forwarding at higher frequencies without waiting for a comparison of Physical Addresses (PA) to conclude in the FB. A safety mechanism may detect a false hit in the FB and generate a late load cancel indication to cancel the earlier-started FB forwarding by ignoring the data obtained as a result of the Ld execution. The Ld is then re-executed later and tries to complete successfully with the correct data.

Efficient fill-buffer data forwarding supporting high frequencies

A cache memory subsystem including a fixed latency read/write pipeline. The cache memory subsystem includes a cache storage which may be configured to store a plurality of cache lines of data. The cache memory subsystem further includes a scheduler which may be configured to schedule reads and writes of information associated with the cache storage using a fixed latency pipeline. In response to scheduling a read request, the scheduler may be further configured to cause an associated write to occur a fixed number of cycles after the scheduling of the read request.

Cache memory subsystem including a fixed latency R/W pipeline

A microprocessor may include a scheduler configured to issue operations and a load store unit configured to execute memory operations issued by the scheduler. The load store unit is configured to store information identifying memory operations issued to the load store unit. In response to detection of incorrect data speculation for one of the issued memory operations, the load store unit is configured to replay at least one of the issued memory operations by providing an indication to the scheduler. The scheduler is configured to responsively reissue the memory operations identified by the load store unit.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Rama S Gopal