Patent · US Active

Determining each stall reason for each stalled instruction within a group of instructions during a pipeline stall

US8635436B2 · kind B2 · utility

1Cited by
4References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 29, 2011
Grant dateJan 21, 2014
Priority date
Expiry dateJul 11, 2032

Classification

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

Abstract

During a pipeline stall in an out of order processor, until a next to complete instruction group completes, a monitoring unit receives, from a completion unit of a processor, a next to finish indicator indicating the finish of an oldest previously unfinished instruction from among a plurality of instructions of a next to complete instruction group. The monitoring unit receives, from a plurality of functional units of the processor, a plurality of finish reports including completion reasons for a plurality of separate instructions. The monitoring unit determines at least one stall reason from among multiple stall reasons for the oldest instruction from a selection of completion reasons from a selection of finish reports aligned with the next to finish indicator from among the plurality of finish reports. Once the monitoring unit receives a complete indicator from the completion unit, indicating the completion of the next to complete instruction group, the monitoring unit stores each determined stall reason aligned with each next to finish indicator in memory.

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