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:
Feb. 25, 1997
Filed:
Apr. 07, 1995
Ralph C McGarity, Austin, TX (US);
Motorola Inc., Schaumburg, IL (US);
Abstract
A data processor (10) has a branch and link address cache ('BLAC') (40) and a BTAC (48) for storing a number of recently encountered fetch address-target address pairs. The BLAC buffers data pairs identifying corresponding subroutine call and subroutine return instructions each time data processor executes a particular subroutine. Upon the second call of the subroutine, control logic (44) stores the half of the data pair identifying the subroutine return instruction and data identifying the return address in the BTAC. The data processor is thereby able to predict the target address of a subroutine return instruction as it is able to predict the target address of traditional branch instructions.