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. 16, 2000
Filed:
Jan. 08, 1997
Nazar Zaidi, San Jose, CA (US);
Gary Hammond, Campbell, CA (US);
Ken Shoemaker, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Jeff Baxter, Cupertino, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
In a microprocessor, an instruction scheduler 30 includes a dependency matrix 36 and a waiting buffer 34. A dependency determination unit 32 receives instructions to be executed, forwards the instructions to the waiting buffer 34, determines if any dependency exists between the instructions, and forwards the dependency information to the dependency matrix 36 in the form of a dependency vector 40. The dependency matrix 36 periodically determines whether any of the instructions contained in the waiting buffer 34 are ready to be executed, that is, no dependencies exist for that instruction. As each instruction is dispatched for execution from the waiting buffer 34, the dependency vector 40 for all dependent instructions is cleared for subsequent execution. In this manner, an out-of-order processing scheme is implemented that efficiently accounts for data dependency between processed instructions.