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:
Jun. 25, 2002
Filed:
Jun. 25, 1999
Applicant:
Inventor:
Albert J. Loper, Jr., Cedar Park, TX (US);
Assignee:
IP First, L.L.C., Fremont, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 9/302 ; G06F 9/315 ; G06F 1/340 ; G06F 1/578 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 9/302 ; G06F 9/315 ; G06F 1/340 ; G06F 1/578 ;
Abstract
A portion of an x86 microprocessor that supports MMX instructions provides a write tracking unit that tracks writes to a separately provided MMX register file, and updates a status register accordingly. A write control unit uses the contents of the status register to control transfers between the MMX register file and the FP register file, so as to only copy those registers that have changed. According to another aspect of the invention, the write control unit insures that architecturally required modifications to the exponent portion of FP registers corresponding to modified MMX registers are provided.