CONTROLLING EXECUTION OF INSTRUCTIONS FOR A PROCESSING PIPELINE HAVING FIRST AND SECOND EXECUTION CIRCUITRY

摘要

An apparatus comprises a processing pipeline comprising out-of-order execution circuitry and second execution circuitry. Control circuitry monitors at least one reordering metric indicative of an extent to which instructions are executed out of order by the out-of-order execution circuitry, and controls whether instructions are executed using the out-of-order execution circuitry or the second execution circuitry based on the reordering metric. A speculation metric indicative of a fraction of executed instructions that are flushed due to a mis-speculation can also be used to determine whether to execute instructions on first or second execution circuitry having different performance or energy consumption characteristics.

主权项

1. An apparatus comprising:
a processing pipeline comprising out-of-order execution circuitry to perform out-of-order execution of instructions and second execution circuitry to execute instructions; and control circuitry to monitor at least one reordering metric indicative of an extent to which instructions are executed out of order by the out-of-order execution circuitry and to control whether instructions are executed using the out-of-order execution circuitry or the second execution circuitry based on said at least one reordering metric.