Apparatus and method for activating and shutting down enhanced modules within an activated pipeline stage based on performance requirements and module priority

摘要

The present invention discloses a method of processing instructions in a pipeline-based central processing unit, wherein the pipeline is partitioned into base pipeline stages and enhanced pipeline stages according to functions, the base pipeline stages being activated all the while, and the enhanced pipeline stages being activated or shutdown according to requirements for performance of a workload. The present invention further discloses a method of processing instructions in a pipeline-based central processing unit, wherein the pipeline is partitioned into base pipeline stages and enhanced pipeline stages according to functions, each pipeline stage being partitioned into a base module and at least one enhanced module, the base module being activated all the while, and the enhanced module being activated or shutdown according to requirements for performance of a workload.

主权项

1. A method for a pipeline-based processor, wherein the pipeline-based processor includes at least one pipeline, the at least one pipeline including a particular pipeline, the method comprising:
partitioning the particular pipeline into a plurality of pipeline stages based on one or more functions, the plurality of pipeline stages including one or more base pipeline stages and a plurality of enhanced pipeline stages; partitioning a particular pipeline stage of the plurality of pipeline stages into at least one base module and a plurality of enhanced modules, each base module of the at least one base module being a partitioned portion of the particular pipeline stage of the particular pipeline of the pipeline-based processor, each enhanced module of the plurality of enhanced modules being a partitioned portion of the particular pipeline stage of the particular pipeline of the pipeline-based processor, each enhanced module of the particular pipeline stage having a particular priority level of at least two different priority levels, at least one of the plurality of enhanced modules of the particular pipeline stage having a different priority level than at least one other of the plurality of enhanced modules, the at least two different priority levels including at least a highest priority level, the highest priority level having a relative priority higher than any other priority level of the at least two different priority levels, each of the at least one base module of the particular pipeline stage configured to be activated while the particular pipeline stage is activated; configuring each of the plurality of enhanced modules to be activated or shut down based on the particular priority level of a corresponding particular enhanced module and requirements for performance of a workload, wherein at least one of the plurality of enhanced modules of the particular pipeline stage is configured to be activated while at least another of the plurality of enhanced modules of the particular pipeline stage is shut down; determining each enhanced module of the particular pipeline stage to have one particular priority level of the at least two different priority levels according to a performance-to-power consumption ratio of a particular enhanced module, wherein a relatively high performance-to-power consumption ratio corresponds to a relatively high priority level; and configuring two or more of the plurality of enhanced modules of the particular pipeline stage to be activated in a high-to-tow order of the at least two different priority levels when the workload increases.