MEMORY AND INSTRUCTIONS IN COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE CONTAINING PROCESSOR AND COPROCESSOR

摘要

A computer system is provided which comprises a first processor (1), a second processor (2) for use as a coprocessor to the first processor (1) and a memory (3). There are also provided data buffers (5) for buffering data to be written to , or read from, the memory (3) in data bursts in accordance with burst instructions. These brust instructions are executed by a burst controller (7), and are provided in sequence for execution by a burst instruction queue (6). Burst instructions are provided by the first processor (1) to the burst instructions queue (6), and data is read from, and written to, the memory (3) by the second processor (2) through the data buffers (5) in accordance with burst instructions executed by the burst controller (7). Coprocessor instructions are provided to control execution of the coprocessor (2), and synchronisation between coprocessor instructions and burst instructions is achieved by a synchronisation mechanism (10, 11) and use of specific coprocessor and burst instructions.