Patents by Inventor Bruce D. Lightner

Bruce D. Lightner has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Processor architecture having independently fetching issuing and updating operations of instructions which are sequentially assigned and stored in order fetched
    Patent number: 5487156
    Abstract: A processor architecture is described which operates with improved computational efficiency using instruction fetching functions that are decoupled from instruction execution functions by a dynamic register file. The instruction fetching function operates in free-running mode which does not stop if a fetched instruction cannot be executed due to data being unavailable or due to other instruction dependencies. Branch instructions are taken in a predicted direction and the results of execution of all instructions are provisionally stored pending validation or invalidation on the basis of the dependencies becoming available later.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 1990
    Date of Patent: January 23, 1996
    Inventors: Valeri Popescu, Merle A. Schultz, Gary A. Gibson, John E. Spracklen, Bruce D. Lightner