Instruction/skid buffers in a multithreading microprocessor that store dispatched instructions to avoid re-fetching flushed instructions

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United States of America Patent

PATENT NO 7853777
SERIAL NO

11051978

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Abstract

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An apparatus for reducing instruction re-fetching in a multithreading processor configured to concurrently execute a plurality of threads is disclosed. The apparatus includes a buffer for each thread that stores fetched instructions of the thread, having an indicator for indicating which of the fetched instructions in the buffer have already been dispatched for execution. An input for each thread indicates that one or more of the already-dispatched instructions in the buffer has been flushed from execution. Control logic for each thread updates the indicator to indicate the flushed instructions are no longer already-dispatched, in response to the input. This enables the processor to re-dispatch the flushed instructions from the buffer to avoid re-fetching the flushed instructions. In one embodiment, there are fewer buffers than threads, and they are dynamically allocatable by the threads. In one embodiment, a single integrated buffer is shared by all the threads.

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Patent Owner(s)

Patent OwnerAddress
MIPS TECH LLC2870 ZANKER ROAD STE 210 SAN JOSE CA 95134

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Inventor(s)

Inventor Name Address # of filed Patents Total Citations
Jones, Darren M Los Altos, US 17 796
Kinter, Ryan C Sammamish, US 35 1018
Uhler, G Michael Menlo Park, US 31 1197
Vishin, Sanjay Sunnyvale, US 31 1303

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