Patents by Inventor Konrad K. Lai

Konrad K. Lai 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).

  • Patent number: 10409612
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a data conflict, a speculative timer expiration, a disallowed instruction attribute or type, etc. And hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof makes an abort determination based on the tracked abort events. As an example, hardware may make an initial abort determination based on one or more predefined events or choose to pass the event information up to a firmware or software handler to make such an abort determination. Upon determining an abort of a speculative code region is to be performed, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof performs the abort, which may include following a fallback path specified by hardware or software.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Martin G. Dixon, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai, Robert S. Chappell, Rajesh S. Parthasarathy, Alexandre J. Farcy, Ilhyun Kim, Prakash Math, Matthew Merten, Vijaykumar Kadgi
  • Patent number: 10409611
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a data conflict, a speculative timer expiration, a disallowed instruction attribute or type, etc. And hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof makes an abort determination based on the tracked abort events. As an example, hardware may make an initial abort determination based on one or more predefined events or choose to pass the event information up to a firmware or software handler to make such an abort determination. Upon determining an abort of a speculative code region is to be performed, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof performs the abort, which may include following a fallback path specified by hardware or software.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2015
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Martin G. Dixon, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai, Robert S. Chappell, Rajesh S. Parthasarathy, Alexandre J. Farcy, Ilhyun Kim, Prakash Math, Matthew Merten, Vijaykumar Kadgi
  • Patent number: 10261879
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 16, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10248524
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10223227
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 5, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10210066
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10210065
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 19, 2019
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10152401
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 11, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 10073719
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a processor includes an execution unit and at least one last branch record (LBR) register to store address information of a branch taken during program execution. This register may further store a transaction indicator to indicate whether the branch was taken during a transactional memory (TM) transaction. This register may further store an abort indicator to indicate whether the branch was caused by a transaction abort. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: September 11, 2018
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Peter Lachner, Laura A. Knauth, Konrad K. Lai
  • Publication number: 20170235638
    Abstract: An example system for speculative execution event counter checkpointing and restoring may include a plurality of symmetric cores, at least one of the symmetric cores to simultaneously process a plurality of threads and to perform out-of-order instruction processing for the plurality of threads; at least one shared cache circuit to be shared among two or more the of symmetric cores. The system may further include a memory controller to couple the symmetric cores to a system memory and a data communication interface to couple one or more of the cores to input/output devices.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2017
    Publication date: August 17, 2017
    Inventors: Laura A. Knauth, Ravi Rajwar, Peggy J. Irelan, Konrad K. Lai, Martin G. Dixon
  • Publication number: 20170235580
    Abstract: An example system for speculative execution event counter checkpointing and restoring may include a plurality of processors, a first interconnect to couple two or more of the plurality of processors, a second interconnect to couple one or more of the plurality of processors to one or more other system components, and a system memory coupled to one or more of the processors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2017
    Publication date: August 17, 2017
    Inventors: Laura A. Knauth, Ravi Rajwar, Peggy J. Irelan, Konrad K. Lai, Martin G. Dixon
  • Publication number: 20170235579
    Abstract: An example processor for speculative execution event counter checkpointing and restoring may include a plurality of symmetric cores, at least one of the symmetric cores to simultaneously process a plurality of threads and to perform out-of-order instruction processing for the plurality of threads; at least one shared cache circuit to be shared among two or more the of symmetric cores. The processor may further include event counter circuitry comprising: a plurality of event counters including programmable event counters and fixed event counters and one or more configuration registers to store configuration data to specify an event type to be counted by the programmable event counters, wherein at least one of the one or more configuration registers is to store configuration data for a plurality of the programmable event counters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 4, 2017
    Publication date: August 17, 2017
    Inventors: Laura A. Knauth, Ravi Rajwar, Peggy J. Irelan, Konrad K. Lai, Martin G. Dixon
  • Patent number: 9529645
    Abstract: Example methods and apparatus to manage object locks are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes intercepting a processor request to apply the lock on the object, identifying a performance history of the object based on a number of instances of contention, reducing computing resources of the processor by, when the number of instances is below a threshold value, generating a lock bypass for the object to cause speculative execution of target code within the object, and preventing speculative execution by applying the lock on the object when the number of instances is above the threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2015
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Suresh Srinivas, Stephen H. Dohrmann, Mingqiu Sun, Uma Srinivasan, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai
  • Publication number: 20160266992
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Publication date: September 15, 2016
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Publication number: 20160246606
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a data conflict, a speculative timer expiration, a disallowed instruction attribute or type, etc. And hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof makes an abort determination based on the tracked abort events. As an example, hardware may make an initial abort determination based on one or more predefined events or choose to pass the event information up to a firmware or software handler to make such an abort determination. Upon determining an abort of a speculative code region is to be performed, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof performs the abort, which may include following a fallback path specified by hardware or software.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 26, 2015
    Publication date: August 25, 2016
    Inventors: Martin G. Dixon, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai, Robert S. Chappell, Rajesh S. Parthasarathy, Alexandre J. Farcy, Ilhyun Kim, Prakash Math, Matthew Merten, Vijakumar Kadgi
  • Publication number: 20160239304
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a data conflict, a speculative timer expiration, a disallowed instruction attribute or type, etc. And hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof makes an abort determination based on the tracked abort events. As an example, hardware may make an initial abort determination based on one or more predefined events or choose to pass the event information up to a firmware or software handler to make such an abort determination. Upon determining an abort of a speculative code region is to be performed, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof performs the abort, which may include following a fallback path specified by hardware or software.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 26, 2015
    Publication date: August 18, 2016
    Inventors: Martin G. Dixon, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai, Robert S. Chappell, Rajesh S. Parthasarathy, Alexandre J. Farcy, Ilhyun Kim, Prakash Math, Matthew Merten, Vijaykumar Kadgi
  • Publication number: 20160232041
    Abstract: In one embodiment, a processor includes an execution unit and at least one last branch record (LBR) register to store address information of a branch taken during program execution. This register may further store a transaction indicator to indicate whether the branch was taken during a transactional memory (TM) transaction. This register may further store an abort indicator to indicate whether the branch was caused by a transaction abort. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 18, 2016
    Publication date: August 11, 2016
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Peter Lachner, Laura A. Knauth, Konrad K. Lai
  • Publication number: 20160210177
    Abstract: An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a data conflict, a speculative timer expiration, a disallowed instruction attribute or type, etc. And hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof makes an abort determination based on the tracked abort events. As an example, hardware may make an initial abort determination based on one or more predefined events or choose to pass the event information up to a firmware or software handler to make such an abort determination. Upon determining an abort of a speculative code region is to be performed, hardware, firmware, software, or a combination thereof performs the abort, which may include following a fallback path specified by hardware or software.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 26, 2015
    Publication date: July 21, 2016
    Inventors: Martin G. Dixon, Ravi Rajwar, Konrad K. Lai, Robert S. Chappell, Rajesh S. Parthasarathy, Alexandre J. Farcy, Ilhyun Kim, Prakash Math, Matthew Merten, Vijaykumar Kadgi
  • Publication number: 20160202979
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Publication date: July 14, 2016
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Merten, Martin G. Dixon
  • Publication number: 20160202987
    Abstract: Novel instructions, logic, methods and apparatus are disclosed to test transactional execution status. Embodiments include decoding a first instruction to start a transactional region. Responsive to the first instruction, a checkpoint for a set of architecture state registers is generated and memory accesses from a processing element in the transactional region associated with the first instruction are tracked. A second instruction to detect transactional execution of the transactional region is then decoded. An operation is executed, responsive to decoding the second instruction, to determine if an execution context of the second instruction is within the transactional region. Then responsive to the second instruction, a first flag is updated. In some embodiments, a register may optionally be updated and/or a second flag may optionally be updated responsive to the second instruction.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 24, 2015
    Publication date: July 14, 2016
    Inventors: Ravi Rajwar, Bret L. Toll, Konrad K. Lai, Matthew C. Marten, Martin G. Dixon