PROCESSOR AND METHOD OF HANDLING AN INSTRUCTION DATA THEREIN

摘要

The method can be performed in a processor integrated circuit having an instruction decoder and a plurality of shared resources, a resource tracker having a plurality of credit units associated to corresponding ones of the shared resources in a manner to be updatable based on availability of the shared resources, a resource matcher connected to receive a resource requirement signal from the decoder and connected to receive a resource availability signal from the resource tracker. The method can include: performing a determination of whether or not the resource requirement signal matches the resource availability signal, and, upon a positive determination, dispatching a corresponding instruction data, updating the status of a corresponding one or more of the credit units, and preventing the resource matcher from performing a subsequent determination for given period of time after the positive determination.

主权项

1. A method of handling an instruction data in a processor chip having a pre-execution instruction pipeline sharing a plurality of resources of at least one resource type, and a resource tracker having a plurality of credit units associated to an availability of corresponding ones of the plurality of shared resources, the method comprising:
the pre-execution instruction pipeline decoding the instruction data to determine a shared resource requirement, checking the resource tracker for a presence of a quantity of said credits corresponding to the shared resource requirement, and, upon establishing the presence of the quantity of said credits
i) dispatching the instruction data to one or more given resources associated to the shared resource requirement among the plurality of shared resources, andii) subtracting the quantity of said credits from the resource tracker; and adding the quantity of said credits to the resource tracker when the one or more given resources are no longer used by the instruction data.