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. 09, 2012
Filed:
Feb. 24, 2010
Peter J. Bannon, Concord, MA (US);
Po-yung Chang, Saratoga, CA (US);
Peter J. Bannon, Concord, MA (US);
Po-Yung Chang, Saratoga, CA (US);
Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
In an embodiment, a processor may be configured to detect a store exclusive operation followed by a memory barrier operation in a speculative instruction stream being executed by the processor. The processor may fuse the store exclusive operation and the memory barrier operation, creating a fused operation. The fused operation may be transmitted and globally ordered, and the processor may complete both the store exclusive operation and the memory barrier operation in response to the fused operation. As the fused operation progresses through the processor and one or more other components (e.g. caches in the cache hierarchy) to the ordering point in the system, the fused operation may push previous memory operations to effect the memory barrier operation. In some embodiments, the latency for completing the store exclusive operation and the subsequent data memory barrier operation may be reduced if the store exclusive operation is successful at the ordering point.