Patent · US Expired

System and method for early resolution of low confidence branches and safe data cache accesses

US6697932B1 · kind B1 · utility

40Cited by
4References
26Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 30, 1999
Grant dateFeb 24, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 30, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3861
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a computer system and method for early resolution of a set of critical instructions. The computer system may include a scoreboard, a scheduling window and a confidence predictor. The scoreboard may include a set of reservation stations. Each one of the set of reservation stations may correspond to one of a set of decoded instructions. Each one of the set of reservation stations may have a priority field. The scheduling window may maintain the scoreboard, wherein if one of the set of decoded instructions is one of the set of critical instructions, the scheduling window may mark the priority field corresponding to the particular one of the set of decoded instructions and also may find and mark the priority field of each of a set of base instructions upon which the particular one of the set of decoded instructions depends. The confidence predictor may also be used to predict whether one of the set of decoded instructions is one of the set of critical instructions.

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