Patent · US Expired

Scoreboard mechanism for serialized string operations utilizing the XER

US6430678B1 · kind B1 · utility

2Cited by
3References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJul 29, 1999
Grant dateAug 6, 2002
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 29, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3867
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An XER scoreboard function is provided by utilizing the instruction sequencer unit scoreboard. A scoreboard bit is set if the XER is being used by a previous instruction. If a new instruction is fetched that uses the XER, a dummy read to the XER is generated to test the scoreboard bit to determine if the scoreboard bit is set. If the scoreboard bit is not set when the dummy read is executed, the X-form string proceeds to execution. If the scoreboard bit is set when the dummy is executed, the pipeline is stalled until the scoreboard bit is cleared, and then the X-form string padded with generated padding IOPs (Dummy or NOPs) is executed. After an accessing instruction is executed, the scoreboard bit is cleared.

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