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. 03, 2003
Filed:
Nov. 04, 1999
Joel Roger Davidson, Austin, TX (US);
John Edward Derrick, Round Rock, 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 in a data processing system is presented. A plurality of instructions are fetched, and the plurality of instructions are matched against at least one match condition to generate instructions that are eligible for sampling. The match conditions may include matching the opcode of an instruction, the pre-decode bits of an instruction, a type of instruction, or other conditions. The matched instructions may be marked using a match bit that accompanies the instruction through the selection process. The instructions eligible for sampling are then sampled to generate a sampled instruction. A sampled instruction may be marked with a sample bit that accompanies the instruction through the instruction execution process in order to monitor the sampled instruction while it is executing within the pipelined processor.