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:
Jun. 02, 1998
Filed:
Apr. 08, 1996
Bryan P Black, Austin, TX (US);
Marvin Denman, Austin, TX (US);
Mark A Kearney, Austin, TX (US);
Seungyoon Peter Song, Austin, TX (US);
Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL (US);
Abstract
A data processor (10) has a branch target address cache (48) for storing the target addresses of a number of recently taken branch instructions. Normally, each fetch address is compared to the contents of the branch target address cache. If a hit occurs, then the data processor branches to the cached target address. The data processor also has a dispatch unit (60) that invalidates the data stored in the branch target address cache if and when it determines that the branch target address cache 'hit' on an instruction that was not a branch instruction at all, a 'phantom branch.' The data processor thereby automatically invalidates its branch target address cache data after a context switch.