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:
Sep. 12, 1995
Filed:
Jan. 28, 1993
Edward Grochowski, San Jose, CA (US);
Kenneth Shoemaker, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Uri Weiser, Haifa, IL;
Doron Orenstein, Haifa, IL;
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
The specification discloses a method and apparatus for determining the length of variable-length instructions that appear sequentially in an instruction stream without differentiation. The apparatus may be used to facilitate parallel processing of such variable-length instructions by a computer system. The apparatus includes: a circuit for providing a boundary marker for each instruction to indicate a boundary between that instruction and another instruction in the instruction stream, a circuit for processing instructions in sequence, a circuit for determining an actual boundary of a first instruction as it is processed, a circuit for comparing the boundary marker and the actual boundary of the first instruction to determine whether they match, a circuit for updating the boundary marker of the first instruction to the actual boundary of the first instruction when the boundary value and the actual boundary of the first instruction do not match, and a circuit for indicating a boundary between the first instruction and a next instruction from the stream of instructions based on the boundary marker of the first instruction.