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:
Dec. 08, 2009
Filed:
Dec. 05, 2003
Perry H. Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Hong Wang, Fremont, CA (US);
John P. Shen, San Jose, CA (US);
Ashok N. Seshadri, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Anthony N. Mah, Dublin, CA (US);
William R. Greene, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Ravi K. Chandran, San Jose, CA (US);
Piyush Desai, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Steve Shih-wei Liao, San Jose, CA (US);
Perry H. Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Hong Wang, Fremont, CA (US);
John P. Shen, San Jose, CA (US);
Ashok N. Seshadri, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Anthony N. Mah, Dublin, CA (US);
William R. Greene, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Ravi K. Chandran, San Jose, CA (US);
Piyush Desai, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Steve Shih-wei Liao, San Jose, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A virtual multithreading hardware mechanism provides multi-threading on a single-threaded processor. Thread switches are triggered by user-defined triggers. Synchronous triggers may be defined in the form of special trigger instructions. Asynchronous triggers may be defined via special marking instructions that identify an asynchronous trigger condition. The asynchronous trigger condition may be based on a plurality of atomic processor events. Minimal context information, such as only an instruction pointer address, is maintained by the hardware upon a thread switch. In contrast to traditional simultaneous multithreading schemes, the virtual multithreading hardware provides thread switches that are transparent to an operating system and that may be performed without operating system intervention.