摘要 |
<p>A graphics processing unit core 26 includes a plurality of processing pipelines 38, 40, 42, 44. A program instruction of a thread of program instructions being executed by a processing pipeline includes a next-instruction-type field 36 indicating an instruction type of a next program instruction following the current program instruction within the processing thread concerned. This next-instruction-type field is used to control selection of to which processing pipeline the next instruction is issued before that next instruction has been fetched and decoded. The next-instruction-type field may be passed along the processing pipeline as the least significant four bits within a program counter value associated with a current program instruction 32. The next-instruction-type field may also be used to control the forwarding of thread state variables between processing pipelines when a thread migrates between processing pipelines prior to the next program instruction being fetched or decoded.</p> |