Modified execution using context sensitive auxiliary code

摘要

A system and method to enhance execution of architected instructions in a processor uses auxiliary code to optimize execution of base microcode. An execution context of the architected instructions may be profiled to detect potential optimizations, resulting in generation and storage of auxiliary microcode. When the architected instructions are decoded to base microcode for execution, the base microcode may be enhanced or modified using retrieved auxiliary code.

主权项

1. A method to enhance code execution, the method comprising:
identifying, as a hotspot, a code sequence of architected instructions executing with a frequency exceeding a hotspot threshold; identifying an instance of an architected instruction in the hotspot to optimize, wherein the architected instruction corresponds to a set of base microcode operations; generating a set of auxiliary code corresponding to the base microcode operations associated with the architected instruction instance, including blending base microcode of the base microcode operations and auxiliary code associated with the architected instruction instance to produce enhanced microcode, including appending an auxiliary code operation to a corresponding base microcode operation, wherein the base microcode for the architected instruction instance corresponds to a first operation and the enhanced microcode corresponds to a second operation; and recording a mapping between the set of auxiliary code and the architected instruction instance.