Patent · US Expired

Data processing system and method for implementing an efficient out-of-order issue mechanism

US6928533B1 · kind B1 · utility

10Cited by
22References
22Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 20, 1999
Grant dateAug 9, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 21, 2021

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/3858
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An out-of-order issue mechanism for a data processing system allows two out-of-order instructions to be issued to independent “pipes” from a window of four instructions currently queued for execution. If the two pipes execute floating pipe operations, dependencies between a computationally intensive floating point unit instruction (referred to as an fpu rr instruction) and the two previous computational intensive instructions having a target and a floating point register (the “fpr target”) are tracked to provide a mechanism that quickly determines when dependent data is available from one of the floating point unit pipes. The data is then used to preempt the issue of a dependent instruction until data is available. Additionally, this out-of-order issue mechanism recognizes when consecutive instructions are dependent upon a same operand. In this situation, the mechanism prioritizes the first of the two instructions to be issued to the pipe satisfying the dependency, while the second instruction is preempted in favor of issuing an independent instruction or an instruction whose dependent data has already been made available to the other pipe when such an instruction is waiting in a q…

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