Intel Corporation

Tyler N Sondag

Sebastian Winkel

Ethan Schuchman

Girish Venkatasubramanian

Youfeng Wu

Jamison D Collins

Jason M Agron

Oleg Margulis

Jayesh Iyer

Polychronis Xekalakis

Rolf Kassa

Ching-Tsun Chou

David B Sheffield

Patrick P Lai

Rainer Theuer

Gregor Stellpflug

Hou-Jen Ko

Sofia Pediaditaki

An apparatus and method for supporting deprecated instructions. For example, one embodiment of a processor comprises: A processor comprising: a plurality of cores, each core comprising a current microarchitecture to execute instructions and process data, the current microarchitecture including hardware support for virtual execution environment comprising a hypervisor running at a first privilege level and one or more virtual machines each running at a second privilege level, the microarchitecture further including partial hardware support for executing deprecated instructions associated with a prior microarchitecture; at least one core of the plurality of cores comprising: a decoder to decode the instructions, the decoder to specify one or more microoperations corresponding to each of the instructions; execution circuitry to execute the corresponding microoperations; wherein either a first type or a second type of virtual machine exit is to be performed responsive to detecting a deprecated instruction in a first virtual machine, wherein responsive to the first type of virtual machine exit, the hypervisor is to perform a first emulation of the prior microarchitecture without reliance on the partial hardware support, and wherein responsive to the second type of virtual machine exit, the hypervisor is to perform a second emulation of the prior microarchitecture relying on the partial hardware support.

Apparatus and method for managing unsupported instruction set architecture (ISA) features in a virtualized environment

Methods and apparatuses relating to assigning a logical thread to a physical thread. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a data storage device that stores code that when executed by a hardware processor causes the hardware processor to perform the following: translating an instruction into a translated instruction, assigning a logical thread for the translated instruction, and providing a thread map hint for the translated instruction; and a hardware scheduler to assign a physical thread of the hardware processor to execute the logical thread based on the thread map hint.

Apparatuses and methods to assign a logical thread to a physical thread

A processor of an aspect includes a decode unit to decode a prior instruction that is to have at least a first context, and a subsequent instruction. The subsequent instruction is to be after the prior instruction in original program order. The decode unit is to use the first context of the prior instruction to determine a second context for the subsequent instruction. The processor also includes an execution unit coupled with the decode unit. The execution unit is to perform the subsequent instruction based at least in part on the second context. Other processors, methods, systems, and machine-readable medium are also disclosed.

Processors, methods, systems, and instruction conversion modules for instructions with compact instruction encodings due to use of context of a prior instruction

Methods and apparatuses relating to a fusion manager to fuse instructions are described. In one embodiment, a hardware processor includes a hardware binary translator to translate an instruction stream into a translated instruction stream, a hardware fusion manager to fuse multiple instructions of the translated instruction stream into a single fused instruction, a hardware decode unit to decode the single fused instruction into a decoded, single fused instruction, and a hardware execution unit to execute the decoded, single fused instruction.

Hardware apparatuses and methods to fuse instructions

A processing device includes a store instruction identification unit to identify a pair of store instructions among a plurality of instructions in an instruction queue. The pair of store instructions include a first store instruction and a second store instruction. The first data of the first store instruction corresponds to a first memory region adjacent to a second memory region, and a second data of the second store instruction corresponds to the second memory region. The processing device to include a store instruction fusion unit to fuse the first store instruction with the second store instruction resulting in a fused store instruction.

Fused adjacent memory stores

In one example a processor includes a region formation engine to identify a region of code for translation from a guest instruction set architecture to a native instruction set architecture. The processor also includes a binary translator to translate the region of code. The region formation engine is to perform aggressive region formation, which includes forming a region across a boundary of a return instruction. The translated region of code is to prevent a side entry into the translated region of code at a translated return target instruction included in the translated region of code. In more specific examples, performing aggressive region formation includes a region formation grow phase and a region formation cleanup phase. In the grow phase priority may be given to growing complete paths from a call target to a corresponding return. The region formation cleanup phase may comprise eliminating call targets that are not reachable.

Optimized call-return and binary translation

A method and apparatus are described for efficient register reclamation. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: single usage detection and tagging logic to examine a sequence of instructions to detect logical registers used by the sequence of instructions that have a single use and to tag an instruction as a single usage instruction if the instruction is a consumer of a logical register that has a single use; an allocator to allocate processor resources to execute the sequence of instructions, the processor resources including physical registers mapped to logical registers to execute the sequence of instructions; and register reclamation logic to free up a logical to physical mapping of a single use register in response to detecting the tag provided by the instruction tagging logic.

Apparatus and method for efficient register allocation and reclamation

A processor includes a front end and a scheduler. The front end includes circuitry to determine whether to apply an acyclical or cyclical thread assignment scheme to code received at the processor, and to, based upon a determined thread assignment scheme, assign code to a static logical thread and to a rotating logical thread. The scheduler includes circuitry to assign the static logical thread to the same physical thread upon a subsequent control flow execution of the static logical thread, and to assign the rotating logical thread to different physical threads upon different executions of instructions in the rotating logical thread.

Instruction and logic for scheduling instructions

A processor includes a front end and a scheduler. The front end includes logic to determine whether to apply an acyclical or cyclical thread assignment scheme to code received at the processor, and to, based upon a determined thread assignment scheme, assign code to a static logical thread and to a rotating logical thread. The scheduler includes logic to assign the static logical thread to the same physical thread upon a subsequent control flow execution of the static logical thread, and to assign the rotating logical thread to different physical threads upon different executions of instructions in the rotating logical thread.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Tyler N Sondag