摘要 |
<p>A microprocessor (10) includes a first register file (44) including a plurality of multimedia registers defined to store operands for multimedia instructions and a second register file (42) including a plurality of floating point registers defined to store operands for floating point instructions. The multimedia registers and floating point registers are mapped to the same logical storage according to the instruction set employed by the microprocessor. In order to maintain predefined behavior when a floating point instruction reads a register most recently updated by a multimedia instruction or vice versa, the microprocessor provides for synchronization of the first and second register files between executing a set of one or more multimedia instructions and a set of one or more floating point instructions. The microprocessor supports an empty state instruction. If the empty state instruction is included between the set of one or more multimedia instructions and the set of one or more floating point instructions in a code sequence, the microprocessor inhibits the register file synchronization.</p> |