Patents Examined by Benjamin Geib
  • Patent number: 10061583
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and apparatuses for data speculation execution (DSX) are described. In some embodiments, a hardware apparatus for performing DSX comprises a hardware decoder to decode an instruction, the instruction to include an opcode, and execution hardware to execute the decoded instruction to reset data speculative execution (DSX) tracking hardware to track speculative memory accesses, clear a DSX status indication in a DSX status register, and commit all speculatively executed stores of the DSX region and thereby end a DSX region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Elmoustapha Ould-Ahmed-Vall, Christopher J. Hughes, Robert Valentine, Milind B. Girkar
  • Patent number: 9971604
    Abstract: An approach is provided in which a mapper control unit receives dispatch information corresponding to a dispatching instruction that targets some of the register fields in a register. The mapper control unit selects, in a history buffer, an available history buffer entry that includes multiple field sets, each including an itag field. In turn, the mapper control unit modifies some of the history buffer field sets, including the itag fields, based on the existing content stored in the targeted register fields.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2015
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sundeep Chadha, Michael J. Genden, Dung Q. Nguyen, David R. Terry, Kenneth L. Ward
  • Patent number: 9940131
    Abstract: A method of one aspect may include receiving a rotate instruction. The rotate instruction may indicate a source operand and a rotate amount. A result may be stored in a destination operand indicated by the rotate instruction. The result may have the source operand rotated by the rotate amount. Execution of the rotate instruction may complete without reading a carry flag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Vinodh Gopal, James D Guilford, Gilbert M Wolrich, Wajdi K Feghali, Erdinc Ozturk, Martin G Dixon, Sean Mirkes, Bret L Toll, Maxim Loktyukhin, Mark C Davis, Alexandre J Farcy
  • Patent number: 9940130
    Abstract: A method of one aspect may include receiving a rotate instruction. The rotate instruction may indicate a source operand and a rotate amount. A result may be stored in a destination operand indicated by the rotate instruction. The result may have the source operand rotated by the rotate amount. Execution of the rotate instruction may complete without reading a carry flag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Vinodh Gopal, James D Guilford, Gilbert M Wolrich, Wajdi K Feghali, Erdinc Ozturk, Martin G Dixon, Sean Mirkes, Bret L Toll, Maxim Loktyukhin, Mark C Davis, Alexandre J Farcy
  • Patent number: 9934166
    Abstract: A method providing simple fine-grain hardware primitives with which software engineers can efficiently implement enforceable separation of programs into modules and constraints on control flow, thereby providing fine-grain locality of causality to the world of software. Additionally, a mechanism is provided to mark some modules, or parts thereof, as having kernel privileges and thereby allows the provision of kernel services through normal function calls, obviating the expensive prior art mechanism of system calls. Together with software changes, Object Oriented encapsulation semantics and control flow integrity in hardware are enforced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2018
    Inventors: Daniel Shawcross Wilkerson, Mark William Winterrowd
  • Patent number: 9928132
    Abstract: Embodiments of the invention relate to dynamically routing instructions to execution units based on detected errors in the execution units. An aspect of the invention includes a computer system including a processor having an instruction issue unit and a plurality of execution units. The processor is configured to detect an error in a first execution unit among the plurality of execution units and adjust instruction dispatch rules of the instruction issue unit based on detecting the error in the first execution unit to restrict access to the first execution unit while leaving un-restricted access to the remaining execution units of the plurality of execution units.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2018
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Fadi Y. Busaba, Steven R. Carlough, Christopher A. Krygowski, Brian R. Prasky, Chung-Lung K. Shum
  • Patent number: 9928068
    Abstract: A system may include a memory to store an enhancer to identify a branch instruction, having a miss-prediction rate above a threshold, in an executing thread. The system may additionally include an instruction update unit to modify an operation code (opcode) of the branch instruction, where a modified opcode of a branch instruction indicates an instruction fetch priority for an executing thread. The system may further include a processor, having an instruction decode unit to set a modified instruction fetch priority of the first executing thread based on the modified opcode of the branch instruction, and an instruction fetch unit to retrieve instructions for the first executing thread from the instruction cache at a first rate, the first rate indicated by the modified instruction fetch priority of the first executing thread.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Sangram Alapati, Puneeth A. Bhat, Satish K. Sadasivam
  • Patent number: 9921845
    Abstract: A system for executing instructions using a plurality of memory fragments for a processor. The system includes a global front end scheduler for receiving an incoming instruction sequence, wherein the global front end scheduler partitions the incoming instruction sequence into a plurality of code blocks of instructions and generates a plurality of inheritance vectors describing interdependencies between instructions of the code blocks. The system further includes a plurality of virtual cores of the processor coupled to receive code blocks allocated by the global front end scheduler, wherein each virtual core comprises a respective subset of resources of a plurality of partitionable engines, wherein the code blocks are executed by using the partitionable engines in accordance with a virtual core mode and in accordance with the respective inheritance vectors. A plurality memory fragments are coupled to the partitionable engines for providing data storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2018
    Assignee: INTEL CORPORATION
    Inventor: Mohammad Abdallah
  • Patent number: 9916163
    Abstract: A system for synchronizing parallel processing of a plurality of functional processing units (FPU), a first FPU and a first program counter to control timing of a first stream of program instructions issued to the first FPU by advancement of the first program counter; a second FPU and a second program counter to control timing of a second stream of program instructions issued to the second FPU by advancement of the second program counter, the first FPU is in communication with a second FPU to synchronize the issuance of a first stream of program instructions to the second stream of program instructions and the second FPU is in communication with the first FPU to synchronize the issuance of the second stream program instructions to the first stream of program instructions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Changhoan Kim
  • Patent number: 9916160
    Abstract: A method of one aspect may include receiving a rotate instruction. The rotate instruction may indicate a source operand and a rotate amount. A result may be stored in a destination operand indicated by the rotate instruction. The result may have the source operand rotated by the rotate amount. Execution of the rotate instruction may complete without reading a carry flag.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Vinodh Gopal, James D. Guilford, Gilbert M. Wolrich, Wajdi K Feghali, Erdinc Ozturk, Martin G Dixon, Sean Mirkes, Bret L Toll, Maxim Loktyukhin, Mark C Davis, Alexandre J Farcy
  • Patent number: 9910824
    Abstract: A computer processor is disclosed. The computer processor may comprise a vector unit comprising a vector register file comprising at least one register to hold a varying number of elements. The computer processor may further comprise processing logic configured to operate on the varying number of elements in the vector register file using one or more instructions that separate a vector or combine two vectors. The computer processor may be implemented as a monolithic integrated circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2018
    Assignee: Optimum Semiconductor Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Mayan Moudgill, Gary J. Nacer, C. John Glossner, Arthur Joseph Hoane, Paul Hurtley, Murugappan Senthilvelan, Pablo Balzola
  • Patent number: 9898302
    Abstract: A control device coupled between a first memory and a second memory and including an execution unit, a first storage unit, a second storage unit, a selection unit and a processing unit is disclosed. The execution unit executes a specific instruction set to access the first and the second memories. The first storage unit is configured to store a first instruction set. The second storage unit is configured to store a second instruction set. The selection unit outputs one of the first and the second instruction sets to serve as the specific instruction set according to a control signal. The processing unit generates the control signal according to an execution state of the execution unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2018
    Assignee: SILICON MOTION, INC.
    Inventors: Yu-Wei Chyan, Jiyun-Wei Lin
  • Patent number: 9898293
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for decoding instructions in a computer program wherein the instructions include one or more base instructions that are subject to modification by one or more other instructions. A decoder determines whether a first received instruction was arrived at by a non-incremental change to a program counter (i.e. a jump in the program). If the first instruction was arrived at by a non-incremental change to the program counter the decoder decodes the immediately preceding instruction to determine if the original instruction is a base instruction subject to modification by one or more other instructions. If the preceding instruction indicates that the original instruction is a base instruction an error has occurred and exception handling code is invoked.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2018
    Assignee: MIPS Tech, LLC
    Inventor: James Robert Whittaker
  • Patent number: 9875103
    Abstract: A method for use by a host microprocessor which translates sequences of instructions from a target instruction set for a target processor to sequences of instructions for the host microprocessor including the steps of beginning execution of a speculative sequence of target instructions by committing state of the target processor and storing memory stores previously generated by execution at a point in the execution of instructions at which state of the target processor is known, executing the speculative sequence of host instructions until another point in the execution of target instructions at which state of the target processor is known, rolling back to last committed state of the target processor and discarding the memory stores generated by the speculative sequence of host instructions if execution fails, and beginning execution of a next sequence of target instructions if execution succeeds.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2018
    Assignee: Intellectual Ventures Holding 81 LLC
    Inventors: Linus Torvalds, Robert Bedichek, Stephen Johnson
  • Patent number: 9870253
    Abstract: A transaction within a computer program or computer application comprises program instructions performing multiple store operations that appear to run and complete as a single, atomic operation. The program instructions forming a current transaction comprise a transaction begin indicator, a plurality of instructions (e.g., store operations), and a transaction end indicator. A near-end of transaction indicator is triggered based on a speculative look ahead operation such that an interfering transaction requiring a halt operation may be delayed to allow the current transaction to end. A halt operation, also referred to as an abort operation, as used herein refers to an operation responsive to a condition where two transactions have been detected to interfere where at least one transaction must be aborted and the state of the processor is reset to the state at the beginning of the aborted transaction by performing a rollback.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 16, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Karl Gschwind, Maged M. Michael, Valentina Salapura
  • Patent number: 9858075
    Abstract: A method includes, in a processor that processes multiple segments of a sequence of instructions of program code, wherein each segment is defined as either speculative or non-speculative, dispatching the instructions of the segments into at least one instruction buffer. The instructions of the segments are executed, and, in each segment, at least some of the executed instructions of the segment are speculatively-committed from the at least one instruction buffer independently of any other segment. Dispatching the instructions includes dispatching the instructions of a first segment into a first region of the at least one instruction buffer, and dispatching the instructions of a second segment, which occurs later in the program code than the first segment, into a second region of the at least one instruction buffer before all the instructions of the first segment have been dispatched into the first region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 6, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2018
    Assignee: CENTIPEDE SEMI LTD.
    Inventors: Omri Tennenhaus, Noam Mizrahi, Alberto Mandler
  • Patent number: 9858078
    Abstract: An approach is provided is provided in which a computing system matches a writeback instruction tag (ITAG) to an entry instruction tag (ITAG) included in an issue queue entry. The writeback ITAG is provided by a first of multiple load store units. The issue queue entry includes multiple ready bits, each of which corresponds to one of the multiple load store units. In response to matching the writeback ITAG to the entry ITAG, the computer system sets a first ready bit corresponding to the first load store unit. In turn, the computing system issues an instruction corresponding to the entry ITAG based upon detecting that each of the multiple ready bits is set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2018
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Joshua W. Bowman, Sundeep Chadha, Michael J. Genden, Dhivya Jeganathan, Dung Q. Nguyen, David R. Terry, Eula F. Tolentino
  • Patent number: 9851971
    Abstract: An instruction stream includes a transactional code region. The transactional code region includes a latent modification instruction (LMI), a next sequential instruction (NSI) following the LMI, and a set of target instructions following the NSI in program order. Each target instruction has an associated function, and the LMI at least partially specifies a substitute function for the associated function. A processor executes the LMI, the NSI, and at least one of the target instructions, employing the substitute function at least partially specified by the LMI. The LMI, the NSI, and the target instructions may be executed by the processor in sequential program order or out of order.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Karl Gschwind, Valentina Salapura, Chung-Lung K. Shum, Timothy J. Slegel
  • Patent number: 9842005
    Abstract: A system for executing instructions using a plurality of register file segments for a processor. The system includes a global front end scheduler for receiving an incoming instruction sequence, wherein the global front end scheduler partitions the incoming instruction sequence into a plurality of code blocks of instructions and generates a plurality of inheritance vectors describing interdependencies between instructions of the code blocks. The system further includes a plurality of virtual cores of the processor coupled to receive code blocks allocated by the global front end scheduler, wherein each virtual core comprises a respective subset of resources of a plurality of partitionable engines, wherein the code blocks are executed by using the partitionable engines in accordance with a virtual core mode and in accordance with the respective inheritance vectors. A plurality register file segments are coupled to the partitionable engines for providing data storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 12, 2017
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventor: Mohammad Abdallah
  • Patent number: 9830154
    Abstract: Techniques and mechanisms for programming an accelerator device to enable performance of a data processing algorithm. In an embodiment, an accelerator of a computer platform is programmed based on programming information received from a host processor of the computer platform. In another embodiment, programming of the accelerator is to enable data driven execution of an instruction by a data stream processing engine of the accelerator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2017
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventor: Vladimir Ivanov