Method and system to indicate an exception-triggering page within a microprocessor

Abstract

A method and system to indicate which page within a software-managed page table triggers an exception within a microprocessor, such as, for example, a digital signal processor, wherein a software-managed translation lookaside buffer (TLB) module receives a virtual address produced by an instruction within a Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) packet, such as, for example, a fetch instruction, and further compares the virtual address to each stored TLB entry. If a match exists, then the TLB module outputs a corresponding mapped physical address for the instruction. Otherwise, if the VLIW packet spans two pages, where a first page is present as a TLB entry within the TLB module and the second page is missing from the stored TLB entries, an indication bit within a data field of a control register is set to identify the TLB miss exception to a software management unit. The software management unit retrieves the indication bit information from the register and further performs a page table look-up within the software-managed page table using the indication bit information in order to retrieve the missing page information. Subsequently, the missing page information is written into a new TLB entry within the TLB module for subsequent virtual address translation and execution of the packet of instructions.