Patent · US Expired

Microprocessor

US6154830A · kind A · utility

6Cited by
3References
6Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateNov 13, 1998
Grant dateNov 28, 2000
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 13, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3877
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

On a microprocessor chip mounting a central processing unit (CPU) for controlling the entire operation of electronic equipment and a digital signal processor (DSP) for processing a specific signal in the electronic equipment, an instruction cache for temporarily storing a DSP program and a cache controller are additionally mounted, and the DSP program and a CPU program are stored in an externally provided instruction memory. The cache controller controls the DSP to wait and interrupts the CPU when a cache miss occurs. The CPU executes a predetermined interrupt processing routine so as to supplement an instruction block including the instruction code from the instruction memory to the instruction cache. Thus, an on-chip memory used for storing instruction codes to be decoded and executed by the DSP can be reduced.

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