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. 02, 2008
Filed:
Oct. 15, 2003
Kenneth Mark Williams, San Jose, CA (US);
Scott Daniel Johnson, Mountain View, CA (US);
Bruce Saylors Mcnamara, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Albert Renrui Wang, Los Altos, CA (US);
Kenneth Mark Williams, San Jose, CA (US);
Scott Daniel Johnson, Mountain View, CA (US);
Bruce Saylors McNamara, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Albert RenRui Wang, Los Altos, CA (US);
Stretch, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method provide unaligned load/store functionality for a processor that supports only aligned load/store instructions. An exemplary embodiment includes an extension adapter including registers for storing data and load/store buffers for realigning data. A processor executes aligned load/store instructions that transfer data in multiples of bytes. Instructions are included for transferring data between memory and the load/store buffers, initializing and transferring data, initializing and transferring data in numbers of bits, advancing or offsetting a data pointer, and for flushing the load/store buffers. In a preferred embodiment, the extension adapter comprises a wide register file for buffering full words of data, load/store buffers formed from multiple single-bit registers for buffering data bits and streaming data for use by the processor, and address generators for pointing to data or memory addresses.