Abstract: A system for translating compressed instructions to instructions in an executable format is described. A translation unit is configured to decompress compressed instructions into a native instruction format using X and Y indices accessed from a memory, a translation memory, and a program specified mix mask. A level 1 cache is configured to store the native instruction format for each compressed instruction. The memory may be configured as a paged instruction cache to store pages of compressed instructions intermixed with pages of uncompressed instructions. Methods of determining a mix mask for efficiently translating compressed instructions is also described. A genetic method uses pairs of mix masks as genes from a seed population of mix masks that are bred and may be mutated to produce pairs of offspring mix masks to update the seed population. A mix mask for efficiently translating compressed instructions is determined from the updated seed population.

Abstract: A method of determining an execution order of memory operations performed by a processor includes executing at least one single-instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) scatter operation by the processor to store data to a memory. The method further includes executing one or more instructions by the processor to determine the execution order of a set of memory operations. The set of memory operations includes the at least one SIMD scatter operation.

Abstract: An apparatus includes a first processor having a first instruction set and a second processor having a second instruction set that is different than the first instruction set. The apparatus also includes a memory storing at least a portion of an operating system. The operating system is concurrently executable on the first processor and the second processor.

Abstract: A processor includes priority adjustment circuitry configured to adjust a priority of a thread of multiple threads configured to execute tasks to have a software-defined priority value or a designated high priority value. The processor also includes circuitry configured to identify a lowest priority thread of the multiple threads and a control unit configured to cause the lowest priority thread to take a pending interrupt.

Abstract: Systems and methods for generating a floating point constant value from an instruction are disclosed. A first field of the instruction is decoded as a sign bit of the floating point constant value. A second field of the instruction is decoded to correspond to an exponent value of the floating point constant value. A third field of the instruction is decoded to correspond to the significand of the floating point constant value. The first field, the second field, and the third field are combined to form the floating point constant value. The exponent value may include a bias, and a bias constant may be added to the exponent value to compensate for the bias. The third field may comprise the most significant bits of the significand. Optionally, the second field and the third field may be shifted by first and second shift values respectively before they are combined to form the floating point constant value.

Abstract: An apparatus includes a processor and a guest operating system. In response to receiving a request to create a task, the guest operating system requests a hypervisor to create a virtual processor to execute the requested task. The virtual processor is schedulable on the processor.

Abstract: A method of compressing a sequence of program instructions begins by examining a program instruction stream to identify a sequence of two or more instructions that meet a parameter. The identified sequence of two or more instructions is replaced by a selected type of layout instruction which is then compressed. A method of decompressing accesses an X-index and a Y-index together as a compressed value. The compressed value is decompressed to a selected type of layout instruction which is decoded and replaced with a sequence of two or more instructions. An apparatus for decompressing includes a storage subsystem configured for storing compressed instructions, wherein a compressed instruction comprises an X-index and a Y-index. A decompressor is configured for translating an X-index and Y-index accessed from the storage subsystem to a selected type of layout instruction which is decoded and replaced with a sequence of two or more instructions.

Abstract: A method includes reading, by a processor, one or more configuration values from a storage device or a memory management unit. The method also includes loading the one or more configuration values into one or more registers of the processor. The one or more registers are useable by the processor to perform address translation.

Abstract: Systems and methods for tracking and switching between execution modes in processing systems. A processing system is configured to execute instructions in at least two instruction execution triodes including a first and second execution mode chosen from a classic/aligned mode and a compressed/unaligned mode. Target addresses of selected instructions such as calls and returns are forcibly misaligned in the compressed mode, such one or more bits, such as, the least significant bits (alignment bits) of the target address in the compressed mode are different from the corresponding alignment bits in the classic mode. When the selected instructions are encountered during execution in the first mode, a decision to switch operation to the second mode is based on analyzing the alignment bits of the target address of the selected instruction.

Abstract: Embodiments disclosed in the detailed description include hybrid write-through/write-back cache policy managers, and related systems and methods. A cache write policy manager is configured to determine whether at least two caches among a plurality of parallel caches are active. If all of one or more other caches are not active, the cache write policy manager is configured to instruct an active cache among the parallel caches to apply a write-hack cache policy. In this manner, the cache write policy manager may conserve power and/or increase performance of a singly active processor core. If any of the one or more other caches are active, the cache write policy manager is configured to instruct an active cache among the parallel caches to apply a write-through cache policy. In this manner, the cache write policy manager facilitates data coherency among the parallel caches when multiple processor cores are active.

Abstract: A method of compressing a sequence of program instructions begins by examining a program instruction stream to identify a sequence of two or more instructions that meet a parameter. The identified sequence of two or more instructions is replaced by a selected type of layout instruction which is then compressed. A method of decompressing accesses an X-index and a Y-index together as a compressed value. The compressed value is decompressed to a selected type of layout instruction which is decoded and replaced with a sequence of two or more instructions. An apparatus for decompressing includes a storage subsystem configured for storing compressed instructions, wherein a compressed instruction comprises an X-index and a Y-index. A decompressor is configured for translating an X-index and Y-index accessed from the storage subsystem to a selected type of layout instruction which is decoded and replaced with a sequence of two or more instructions.

Abstract: A method of determining an execution order of memory operations performed by a processor includes executing at least one single-instruction, multiple-data (SIMD) scatter operation by the processor to store data to a memory. The method further includes executing one or more instructions by the processor to determine the execution order of a set of memory operations. The set of memory operations includes the at least one SIMD scatter operation.

Abstract: Systems and methods relate to efficient memory operations. A single instruction multiple data (SIMD) gather operation is implemented with a gather result buffer located within or in close proximity to memory, to receive or gather multiple data elements from multiple orthogonal locations in a memory, and once the gather result buffer is complete, the gathered data is transferred to a processor register. A SIMD copy operation is performed by executing two or more instructions for copying multiple data elements from multiple orthogonal source addresses to corresponding multiple destination addresses within the memory, without an intermediate copy to a processor register. Thus, the memory operations are performed in a background mode without direction by the processor.

Abstract: Systems and methods for allocation of cache lines in a shared partitioned cache of a multi-threaded processor. A memory management unit is configured to determine attributes associated with an address for a cache entry associated with a processing thread to be allocated in the cache. A configuration register is configured to store cache allocation information based on the determined attributes. A partitioning register is configured to store partitioning information for partitioning the cache into two or more portions. The cache entry is allocated into one of the portions of the cache based on the configuration register and the partitioning register.

Abstract: An instruction identifies a register and a memory location. Upon execution of the instruction by a processor, an item is loaded from the memory location and a shift and insert operation is performed to shift data in the register and to insert the item into the register.

Abstract: An apparatus, system and method of determining an extremum are disclosed. A reference location identifier and a reference extremum are coupled. An input extremum of an input data set is determined and a corresponding location identifier of the input extremum is also determined. The input extremum is compared with the reference extremum to determine an output extremum and output location identifier, based on the comparison.

Abstract: A method includes identifying, at a scheduling unit, a resource conflict at a shared processing resource that is accessible by a first processing cluster and by a second processing cluster, where the first processing cluster, the second processing cluster, and the shared processing resource are included in a very long instruction word (VLIW) processing unit. The method also includes resolving the resource conflict.

Abstract: Systems and methods for implementing certain load instructions, such as vector load instructions by cooperation of a main processor and a coprocessor. The load instructions which are identified by the main processor for offloading to the coprocessor are committed in the main processor without receiving corresponding load data. Post-commit, the load instructions are processed in the coprocessor, such that latencies incurred in fetching the load data are hidden from the main processor. By implementing an out-of-order load data buffer associated with an in-order instruction buffer, the coprocessor is also configured to avoid stalls due to long latencies which may be involved in fetching the load data from levels of memory hierarchy, such as L2, L3, L4 caches, main memory, etc.

Abstract: A system and method of processing a hierarchical very long instruction word (VLIW) packet is disclosed. In a particular embodiment, a method of processing instructions is disclosed. The method includes receiving a hierarchical VLIW packet of instructions and decoding an instruction from the packet to determine whether the instruction is a single instruction or whether the instruction includes a subpacket that includes a plurality of sub-instructions. The method also includes, in response to determining that the instruction includes the subpacket, executing each of the sub-instructions.

Abstract: Techniques are provided for executing a vector alignment instruction. A scalar register file in a first processor is configured to share one or more register values with a second processor, the one or more register values accessed from the scalar register file according to an Rt address specified in a vector alignment instruction, wherein a start location is determined from one of the shared register values. An alignment circuit in the second processor is configured to align data identified between the start location within a beginning Vu register of a vector register file (VRF) and an end location of a last Vu register of the VRF according to the vector alignment instruction. A store circuit is configured to select the aligned data from the alignment circuit and store the aligned data in the vector register file according to an alignment store address specified by the vector alignment instruction.