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. 07, 2002
Filed:
Jul. 09, 1999
G. Glenn Henry, Austin, TX (US);
Albert J. Loper, Jr., Cedar Park, TX (US);
IP-First, L.L.C., Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for tracking coherence between distinct floating point and MMX register files in a microprocessor is provided. The apparatus keeps track of the last time a floating point or MMX instruction was translated and what the instruction type of that previous instruction was by storing the previous instruction type in a register. When the current instruction is translated, the translator compares the current instruction type with the previous instruction type stored in the register to determine if they are different, i.e., if an instruction boundary (a change from MMX to floating point instruction or vice versa) was encountered. If so, the translator generates a signal to indicate that the two register files may be incoherent and need to be made consistent again.