Vector co-processor for configurable and extensible processor architecture
US7376812B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | May 13, 2002 |
| Grant date | May 20, 2008 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 26, 2024 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/3893
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A processor can achieve high code density while allowing higher performance than existing architectures, particularly for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) applications. In accordance with one aspect, the processor supports three possible instruction sizes while maintaining the simplicity of programming and allowing efficient physical implementation. Most of the application code can be encoded using two sets of narrow size instructions to achieve high code density. Adding a third (and larger, i.e. VLIW) instruction size allows the architecture to encode multiple operations per instruction for the performance critical section of the code. Further, each operation of the VLIW format instruction can optionally be a SIMD operation that operates upon vector data. A scheme for the optimal utilization (highest achievable performance for the given amount of hardware) of multiply-accumulate (MAC) hardware is also provided.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.