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:
Sep. 16, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 01, 2000
Timothy Alan Olson, Austin, TX (US);
James S. Blomgren, Austin, TX (US);
Intrinsity, Inc., Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus that minimizes instruction gaps behind a branch instruction in a multistage pipelined processor is disclosed. A pre-branch instruction that corresponds to a branch instruction to inserted into the instruction stream a sufficient number of instructions ahead of the branch instruction to insure that the pre-branch instruction exits the decode stage of the pipeline at the same time the branch instruction exits the first instruction fetch stage of the pipeline. The pre-branch instruction is decoded and causes the instruction fetch unit either to begin fetching instructions at a target address, where the branch is known or predicted to be taken, or to continue fetching instructions along the main execution path, the branch is known or predicted to be not taken.