DEVICE FOR SAMPLING INSTRUCTION IN PROCESSOR PIPELINE AT RANDOM

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device which samples an instruction in a processing pipeline at random. SOLUTION: This device is the one which samples an instruction in a processor pipeline of a system and a pipeline 200 has plural processing steps. This device includes a fetch unit 210 for fetching the instruction to the first step of the pipeline 200. An instruction which is selected at random is identified and while the specific selected instruction is on any step of the pipeline 200, the state information of the system is sampled. When the specific selected instruction goes out of the pipeline 200, software is notified of this and therefore, the software can read any state information.