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:
Nov. 12, 1996
Filed:
Sep. 20, 1993
Jonathan Fitch, Cupertino, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for emulation routine pointer prefetch are disclosed. The apparatus includes an emulated program counter (EPC), a prefetch state machine, a summing device, an opcode storage device, and a pointer storage device. The EPC, opcode storage device and pointer storage device are coupled to a bus to receive, store and output an emulated program counter value, an opcode value and a pointer to a next emulation routine. The EPC, opcode storage device, and pointer storage device are controlled by the prefetch state machine, which also is coupled to the bus to detect a reference to a reserved memory address and stores an updated emulated program counter value in the EPC using the summing device. The prefetch state machine uses the EPC value to prefetch the next source instruction to be emulated in a first memory operation. A portion of the prefetched source instruction is the opcode value and is stored in the opcode storage device. The prefetch state machine uses the opcode value in a second memory operation to retrieve a pointer to a corresponding emulation routine which is stored in the pointer storage device. The method for emulation routine pointer prefetch preferably comprises the steps of determining if a currently executing emulation routine has issued an instruction to update the EPC; prefetching a next source instruction based upon the value of the EPC; and using an opcode within the prefetched source instruction to prefetch a pointer to a next emulation routine corresponding to the prefetched source instruction.