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:
Sep. 21, 1999
Filed:
Apr. 17, 1997
Neil Wilhelm, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Robert Yung, Fremont, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A processor is disclosed. The processor includes a processing unit with a plurality of pipelines. Each of the pipelines execute instructions which may define source register values and destination register values from a register file. A plurality of memories is also provided, each associated with one of the plurality of pipelines respectively. A coherency mechanism is provided to maintain coherency among the register values in the plurality of pipelines and their associated memories. In one embodiment, each memory associated with the plurality of pipelines is a register cache. Each register cache stores register values that were just used or will soon be needed by the instructions that have or will be executed on the pipeline associated with the register cache. A variety of coherency mechanisms may be used to transfer register values from register cache to register cache and maintain coherency among the register values in the plurality of register caches. The coherency protocols include, but are not limited to ownership protocols, snooping protocols and a new protocol that permits only one addressable valid copy of a register value among all the register caches and the register file at a time.