High speed transfer of instructions from a master to a slave processor

Abstract

A master-slave processor interface protocol transfers a plurality of instructions from a master processor to a slave processor. Each instruction has an opcode and a set of operands. The interface includes a micro-engine which sends the opcode for each of the instructions to be executed to the slave processor and stores the opcode in a first buffer in the slave processor. A second micro-engine operates the master processor to fetch and process the set of operands for each of the instructions to be executed by the slave processor in the order of the opcode delivery to the first buffer. A third micro-engine delivers a signal to the slave processor when the master processor is ready to deliver the operands for an instruction. The opcode associated with the operands ready to be delivered is then moved from the first buffer to a second buffer upon receiving the signal from the master processor. The processed set of operands are then sent to the second buffer and the instruction is executed. Finally, any opcodes in the first buffer having a set of operands which were not delivered in their proper order are invalidated when a new opcode is sent to the first buffer. This allows pre-decoding to begin on the opcodes in the slave processor thus reducing the overhead of the instruction execution.