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. 25, 2005
Filed:
May. 02, 2000
Laurent Wojcieszak, Meylan, FR;
Andrew Cofler, Voreppe, FR;
Laurent Wojcieszak, Meylan, FR;
Andrew Cofler, Voreppe, FR;
STMicroelectronics S.A., Gentilly, FR;
Abstract
A method of executing loops in a computer system is described. The computer system has a sequence of instructions held in program memory and a prefetch buffer which holds instructions fetched from the memory ready for supply to a decoder of the computer system. If the size of the loop to be executed is such that it can by holly contained within the prefetch buffer, this is detected and a lock is put on the prefetch buffer to retain the loop within it while the loop is executed a requisite number of times. This thus allows power to be saved and reduces the overhead on the memory access buffers. According to another aspect, loops can be 'skipped' by holding a value of zero in the loop counter register.