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. 25, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 19, 1996
Edward T Grochowski, San Jose, CA (US);
Donald B Alpert, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for improving the performance of pipelined computer processors which have segment bits for specifying the operand size, the address size for memory reference, and the stack size, and which can run self-modifying code. The processor predicts segment bits based on previously used segment bits. Actual segment bits are later determined during execution of an instruction. The predicted segment bits are compared with the actual segment bits, and the pipeline is flushed if they do not match. Also, an instruction verification method is provided to determine if self-modifying code has modified instructions already in the pipeline. Upon execution of a write instruction, each instruction address in the pipeline is compared with the write address. If a match is found, the pipeline is flushed.