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:
Mar. 25, 2003
Filed:
Nov. 08, 1999
Joel Roger Davidson, Austin, TX (US);
Michael Stephen Floyd, Leander, TX (US);
Judith E. K. Laurens, Bastrop, TX (US);
Alexander Erik Mericas, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for selecting an instruction to be monitored within a pipelined processor is presented. One or more pairs of match values stored in control registers are allocated for use in instruction sampling or instruction matching. These pairs, referred to as V and V are used together to filter instructions for sampling or for instruction matching. During the fetch or decode stage, the instruction word is compared bit by bit to the V and V pair(s). For each bit in the instruction word, the corresponding bit in V and V are used to determine if a match exists. If every bit position in the instruction word results in a match, the instruction is eligible for sampling. If any bit position does not match, the instruction is not eligible. In response to a determination that the instruction is eligible for sampling, the execution of the instruction may be monitored.