Register reservation method for fast context switching in microprocessors
US5987258A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 27, 1997 |
| Grant date | Nov 16, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 27, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/462
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Microprocessor main programs and their interrupt handling routines are written in a high level programming language such as C. Each is compiled separately, and each is compiled invoking a compiler option which commands the compiler to not use a given set of registers in the compiled code. Post-processing is then performed on the compiled interrupt code to replace accesses to a first set of registers with accesses to the given set of registers. The result is that while both the main program and the interrupt handler were written in C, the compiled code for each employs different registers. This allows context switching from the main program to the interrupt handler and back again with almost none of the overhead traditionally associated with context switching register save and restore operations during exception handling.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.