Patent · US Expired

Method and system for dynamically recovering a register-address-table upon occurrence of an interrupt or branch misprediction

US5794024A · kind A · utility

26Cited by
18References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMar 25, 1996
Grant dateAug 11, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateMar 25, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3858
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and system for dynamically recovering a lookahead register-address-table (RAT) in a processor that executes program instructions. Each instruction that updates a logical register address is assigned to a different physical register address. Each of the instructions to be processed by the processor are stored in a fifo queue. The physical register address assignments for each of the instructions are stored in a first RAT, and information regarding instructions that have completed execution by the processor are stored in a second RAT. The method and system further comprises storing the physical register address assignments for non-branch instructions from the fifo queue in a recovery RAT. The first RAT is then restored after an interrupt occurs by copying the second RAT into the recovery RAT and then copying the recovery RAT into the first RAT. The first RAT is restored after a mispredicted branch instruction has been executed by copying the recovery RAT into the first RAT, whereby the first RAT is restored without storing multiple snapshots.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.