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:
Oct. 08, 2002
Filed:
Mar. 04, 1997
Sugako Otani, Tokyo, JP;
Shunichi Iwata, Tokyo, JP;
Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are directed toward a technique which facilitates the process instruction codes in processor. According to the present invention, a memory device is provided which comprises a plurality of 2N-bit word boundaries, where N is greater than or equal to one. The processor of the present invention executes instruction codes of a 2N-bit length and a N-bit length. The instruction codes are stored in the memory device is such a way that the 2-N bit word boundaries contains either a single 2N-bit instruction code or two N-bit instruction codes. The most significant bit of each instruction code serves as a instruction format identifier which controls the execution (or decoding) sequence of the instruction codes. As a result, only two transfer paths from an instruction fetch portion to an instruction decode portion of the processor are necessary thereby reducing the hardware requirement of the processor and increasing system throughput.