Patent · US Expired

Method for optimally encoding a set of instruction codes for a digital processor having a plurality of instruction selectable resource types and an associated optimized set of instruction codes

US6801995B1 · kind B1 · utility

4Cited by
7References
15Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 4, 1998
Grant dateOct 5, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 10, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/30181
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method of assigning unique instruction codes to instructions in an instruction set is disclosed. Such an encoded instruction set is also disclosed. Instructions are grouped according to the particular resources used, where all of the instructions in a group have one or more resource types in common. The position of the highest order active bit in the code is used to identify which resource group a particular instruction belongs to. Instructions in a resource group reserve the same number of bits to identify the specific resources to be used, and no more bits are reserved than required. The remaining unassigned bits are used to encode particular command codes. When such an encoded command is decoded, the resource group is identified by determining the highest order active bit in the instruction. This information is used to determine which bits in the instruction are command bits and which are resource-identifying bits. The specific resource information is extracted and used to select the designated resources to be used in executing the command. This encoding scheme eliminates wasted bits in instructions and thereby increases the number of instructions which can be implemented.

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