Extended operand management indicator structure and method

摘要

Extended operand management indicators stored during initial program execution enable management and regulation of operand values and streamline their handling. Operand values are stored in new types of stores. Operand location management indicators indicate current operand value locations among various store types for selected operands. Indicated operand-forwarding policies for selected operands streamline forwarding of operand values from source instructions to value receiving target instructions. Indicated loop iterations of operand source instructions enable forwarding of operands over more than one loop iteration. Stride indicators indicate strides of program loop accesses to matrix operands. Inter-loop indicators enable forwarding of operand values from source loop instructions directly to target loop instructions. Constant or nearly constant operands are indicated to enable their storage in special caches. Operands used for cross-CPU serialization are indicated for special handling and storage in spin lock cache. Indicators of farthest back and farthest forward branches since operand last update are used to enhance the prediction of longer-range branch directions. Virtual predicate operand indicators streamline execution of densely branching program code. Stack operand indicators enable nullification of paired stack pointer increment-decrement operations to avoid serious operand serialization bottlenecks in very high issue rate machines.