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:
Apr. 27, 1999
Filed:
Aug. 25, 1997
Robert Thaddeus Golla, Plano, TX (US);
James Allan Kahle, Austin, TX (US);
Albert John Loper, Cedar Park, TX (US);
Soummya Mallick, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and system for executing a context-altering instruction within a processor are disclosed. The processor has a superscalar architecture that includes multiple pipelines, buffers, registers, and execution units. The processor also includes a machine state register for identifying a context of the processor, and a shadow machine state register in conjunction with the machine state register. During operation, a first state of the machine state register is copied to the shadow machine state register. Instructions are executed in accordance with a context identified by the first state of the machine state register. The first state of the shadow machine state register is subsequently altered to a second state in response to decoding a context-altering instruction. The context-altering instruction and subsequent instructions are then executed in accordance with the second state of the shadow machine state register. Finally, the first state of the machine state register is altered to the second state in response to a completion of the context-altering instruction. As a result context synchronization operations are avoided.