Processor exploiting trivial arithmetic operations

摘要

The present application relates to the field of processors and in particular to the carrying out of arithmetic operations. Many of the computations performed by processors consist of a large number of simple operations. As a result, a multiplication operation may take a significant number of clock cycles to complete. The present application provides a processor having a trivial operand register, which is used in the carrying out of arithmetic or storage operations for data values stored in a data store.

主权项

1. A processor comprising:
a data store for storing data values, and a trivial operand register for storing at least one flag for each data value in the data store, the at least one flag indicating whether each stored data value is a trivial operand, wherein: the processor is configured to employ the trivial operand register in performing instructions; the data store is provided as a register-file; and the processor further comprises a plurality of comparators, wherein each of the comparators is connected directly to a corresponding write-port on the input lines of the register-file and wherein each of the comparators determines whether data at the corresponding write-port on input lines of the register-file comprises a trivial operand.