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:
Feb. 06, 2001
Filed:
Aug. 21, 1998
Uwe Kranich, Munich, DE;
David S. Christie, Austin, TX (US);
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A cache memory configured to access stored instructions according to basic blocks is disclosed. Basic blocks are natural divisions in instruction streams resulting from branch instructions. The start of a basic block is a target of a branch, and the end is another branch instruction. A microprocessor configured to use a basic block oriented cache may comprise a basic block cache and a basic block sequence buffer. The basic block cache may have a plurality of storage locations configured to store basic blocks. The basic block sequence buffer also has a plurality of storage locations, each configured to store a block sequence entry. The block sequence entry may comprise an address tag and one or more basic block pointers. The address tag corresponds to the fetch address of a particular basic block, and the pointers point to basic blocks that follow the particular basic block in a predicted order. A system using the microprocessor and a method for caching instructions in a block oriented manner rather than conventional power-of-two memory blocks are also disclosed.