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:
May. 11, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 31, 1997
Siamak Arya, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A vector processor with a vector mask control unit provides an efficient approach for execution of conditional loops by a vector processor. The vector mask control unit includes respective vector masks for source and destination vector registers to specify the vector elements that should participate in the execution operation. Only the vector elements that correspond to active mask elements then participate in the execution operation, thus increasing the efficiency of the vector processor in executing conditional loops. Providing a vector mask control unit also allows the vector processor to perform a variety of functions more efficiently. For example, using a vector mask circuit allows a vector processor to efficiently perform vector reduction operations, neighboring vector operations and discrete fourier transform operations