The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 20, 2025
Filed:
Nov. 15, 2021
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Deepankar Duggal, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Haoyan Jia, Ellicott, MD (US);
Mridul Agarwal, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Richard F. Russo, San Jose, CA (US);
Debasish Chandra, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Yanran Yang, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A livelock resolution circuit may be used to detect and remove a livelock from a processor. The livelock resolution circuit may use a counter, whose value may be reset or incremented depending on a status of a retire pointer in a reorder buffer circuit (ROB). When the retire pointer fails to move from one operation to another over a period of time, the value in the counter may continuously increment to exceed a threshold, indicating that the period of time elapses without a successful retirement of an operation from the ROB. Thus, the livelock resolution circuit may determine that a livelock occurs. To remove the livelock, the livelock resolution circuit may involve a single-step operational mode, where the livelock resolution circuit may demand only one operation (or microoperation) to be executed at each step. As a result, the operation may be retired and the livelock may be removed.