Texas Instruments Corporation

Timothy David Anderson

Kai Chirca

Duc Quang Bui

Joseph R Zbiciak

Naveen Bhoria

Pete Michael Hippleheuser

Mujibur Rahman

Abhijeet Ashok Chachad

Matthew D Pierson

David Matthew Thompson

Daniel Brad Wu

Joseph Raymond Michael Zbiciak

Peter Richard Dent

Soujanya Narnur

Todd T Hahn

Alan Davis

Son Hung Tran

Asheesh Bhardwaj

Sanjive Agarwala

Jonathan (Son) Hung Tran

Charles Lance Fuoco

Mel Alan Phipps

David E Smith

Shriram D Moharil

Raguram Damodaran

Ramakrishnan Venkatasubramanian

David A Comisky

Eric Biscondi

Sahithi Krishna

Arthur John Redfern

Lewis Nardini

Dheera Balasubramanian Samudrala

Dheera Balasubramanian

Ashish Rai Shrivastava

Amitabh Menon

Jelena Milanovic

Paul Daniel Gauvreau

Gary L Swoboda

Donald Edward Steiss

Chenchi Luo

Reid E Tatge

Christopher L Mobley

William Franklin Leven

Zhenhua Yu

Pramod Kumar Swami

Jonathan H Shiell

David J Hoyle

Amritpal Singh Mundra

Jose Luis Flores

Alan David Hales

Shyam Jagannathan

Brian Jason Karguth

Neelima Muralidharan

Djordje Senicic

Joseph R M Zbiciak

Due Quang Bui

Manisha Agarwala

Steven D Krueger

Joel J Graber

David Quintin Bell

David Edward Smith, Jr

Simonjit Dutta

Ashish Shrivastava

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

In described examples, a processor system includes a processor core that generates memory write requests, and a cache memory with a memory controller having a memory pipeline. The cache memory has cache lines of length L. The cache memory has a minimum write length that is less than a cache line length of the cache memory. The memory pipeline determines whether the data payload includes a first chunk and ECC syndrome that correspond to a partial write and are writable by a first cache write operation, and a second chunk and ECC syndrome that correspond to a full write operation that can be performed separately from the first cache write operation. The memory pipeline performs an RMW operation to store the first chunk and ECC syndrome in the cache memory, and performs the full write operation to store the second chunk and ECC syndrome in the cache memory.

Write control for read-modify-write operations in cache memory

A method to compare first and second source data in a processor in response to a vector maximum with indexing instruction includes specifying first and second source registers containing first and second source data, a destination register storing compared data, and a predicate register. Each of the registers includes a plurality of lanes. The method includes executing the instruction by, for each lane in the first and second source register, comparing a value in the lane of the first source register to a value in the corresponding lane of the second source register to identify a maximum value, storing the maximum value in a corresponding lane of the destination register, asserting a corresponding lane of the predicate register if the maximum value is from the first source register, and de-asserting the corresponding lane of the predicate register if the maximum value is from the second source register.

Vector maximum and minimum with indexing

Devices and methods are provided for performing, by a processor in response to a floating point multiply instruction, multiplication of floating point numbers. In an example, a device includes a processor that includes a multiply circuit. The multiply circuit is configured to multiply floating point numbers in response to a floating point multiply instruction, and is further configured to determine values of implied bits of mantissas of the floating point numbers, and multiply the mantissas in parallel with the determining operation.

Method and apparatus for implied bit handling in floating point multiplication

An apparatus includes a CPU core, a first cache subsystem coupled to the CPU core, and a second memory coupled to the cache subsystem. The first cache subsystem includes a configuration register, a first memory, and a controller. The controller is configured to: receive a request directed to an address in the second memory and, in response to the configuration register having a first value, operate in a non-caching mode. In the non-caching mode, the controller is configured to provide the request to the second memory without caching data returned by the request in the first memory. In response to the configuration register having a second value, the controller is configured to operate in a caching mode. In the caching mode the controller is configured to provide the request to the second memory and cache data returned by the request in the first memory.

Controller with caching and non-caching modes

In an embodiment, a circuit includes a data path including at least a first lane of a first width and a second lane of a second, larger, width; an execution unit to execute a first instruction on data of the first width or less using the first lane, and to execute a second instruction on data greater than the first width and less than or equal to the second width using the second lane; and a control register that stores a value indicating which of the first and second lanes to be used in instruction execution by the execution unit. The circuit is configured to, based on the value stored in the control register, power off the first lane when the execution unit executes the second instruction but not the first instruction, and power off the second lane when the execution unit executes the first instruction but not the second instruction.

System and method to control the number of active vector lanes in a processor

A caching system including a first sub-cache and a second sub-cache in parallel with the first sub-cache, wherein the second sub-cache includes a set of cache lines, line type bits configured to store an indication that a corresponding cache line of the set of cache lines is configured to store write-miss data, and an eviction controller configured to flush stored write-miss data based on the line type bits.

Victim cache that supports draining write-miss entries

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 Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) digital signal processor particularly adapted for single instruction multiple data (SIMD) operation on various operand widths and data sizes. A vector compare instruction compares first and second operands and stores compare bits. A companion vector conditional instruction performs conditional operations based upon the state of a corresponding predicate data register bit. A predicate unit performs data processing operations on data in at least one predicate data register including unary operations and binary operations. The predicate unit may also transfer data between a general data register file and the predicate data register file.

Vector SIMD VLIW data path architecture

A method is provided that includes performing, by a processor in response to a vector matrix multiply instruction, multiplying an m×n matrix (A matrix) and a n×p matrix (B matrix) to generate elements of an m×p matrix (R matrix), and storing the elements of the R matrix in a storage location specified by the vector matrix multiply instruction.

Vector based matrix multiplication

A processor is provided that includes a first multiplication unit in a first data path of the processor, the first multiplication unit configured to perform single issue multiply instructions, and a second multiplication unit in the first data path, the second multiplication unit configured to perform single issue multiply instructions, wherein the first multiplication unit and the second multiplication unit are configured to execute respective single issue multiply instructions in parallel.

Multiple multiplication units in a data path

A processor and a vector sort instruction for the processor to execute are provided, in which the vector sort instructions includes instructions for comparing a first element of a set of vector elements of a vector to a remainder of the set of vector elements; determining, based on the comparing, a control vector that specifies a respective sorted position for each element of the set of vector elements; and reordering the set of vector elements based on the control vector.

Method and apparatus for vector sorting using vector permutation logic

Disclosed embodiments relate to a security firewall having a security hierarchy including: secure master (SM); secure guest (SG); and non-secure (NS). There is one secure master and n secure guests. The firewall includes one secure region for secure master and one secure region for secure guests. The SM region only allows access from the secure master and the SG region allows accesses from any secure transaction. Finally, the non-secure region can be implemented two ways. In a first option, non-secure regions may be accessed only upon non-secure transactions. In a second option, non-secure regions may be accessed any processing core. In this second option, the access is downgraded to a non-secure access if the security identity is secure master or secure guest. If the two security levels are not needed the secure master can unlock the SM region to allow any secure guest access to the SM region.

Secure master and secure guest endpoint security firewall

Techniques for caching data are provided that include receiving, by a caching system, a write memory command for a memory address, the write memory command associated with a first color tag, determining, by a first sub-cache of the caching system, that the memory address is not cached in the first sub-cache, determining, by second sub-cache of the caching system, that the memory address is not cached in the second sub-cache, storing first data associated with the first write memory command in a cache line of the second sub-cache, storing the first color tag in the second sub-cache, receiving a second write memory command for the cache line, the write memory command associated with a second color tag, merging the second color tag with the first color tag, storing the merged color tag, and evicting the cache line based on the merged color tag.

Write merging on stores with different tags

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University Park, TX, United States of America

Timothy David Anderson