Abstract: A system to determine fault tolerance in an integrated circuit may include a programmable logic device carried by the integrated circuit. The system may also include a configurable memory carried by the programmable logic device to control the function and/or connection of a portion of the programmable logic device. The system may further include user logic carried by said programmable logic device and in communication with a user and/or the configurable memory. The user logic may identify corrupted data in the configurable memory based upon changing user requirements.

Abstract: In a computer system with multiple chips connected via a connection module with high speed elastic interface buses that support bus repair is enhanced by use of a spare net. Support is provided to ensure that the spare net can be tested in the same way that every normal bus net can be tested at all supported environments. It ensure that the system controller can find out what connections are bad and how to apply the controls to repair them for all tests and in the field for the customer.

Abstract: A method is provided for recording a list of facilities available to a program executing on an information processing system. In such method a storage location and a length of data are defined for recording the list of facilities by a program being executed on the information processing system. An instruction is issued by the program for determining the available facilities and recording the list of available facilities in accordance with the defined storage location and data length. A processor executes the instruction to determine the available facilities and record the list of facilities in accordance with the defined storage location and defined data length. The recorded list of facilities can then be read by the first program.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for synchronizing adjustment of a time of day (TOD) clock for a computer system having multiple CPUs, each CPU having an associated physical clock providing a time base for executing operations that is stepping to a common oscillator, and an associated logical TOD clock. The method includes detecting propagation of a carry at a pre-determined bit position of the physical clock associated with a CPU in the computer system; and, updating, in response to the detecting of the pre-determined bit position carry, a TOD-clock offset value (d) to be added to a physical clock value (Tr) value to obtain a logical TOD clock value (Tb) for use by a CPU in the system. In this manner, each CPU computes a new logical TOD clock value in synchronization—the new logical TOD clock value taking effect simultaneously for the multiple CPUs.

Abstract: Two forms of TOD Clock instructions are provided, Store Clock and Store Clock Fast. Execution of the Store Clock Fast instruction may produce a time of day (TOD) result that is exactly the same as a previous TOD result, however execution of Store Clock Fast instructions while the clock is running always produce unique TOD results.

Abstract: A system to improve data packet routing in a data processing device may include a plurality of functional modules, and communication buses connecting the functional modules. The system may also include a flow control mechanism in which command packets that traverse the communication buses are each assigned their own channel with their own pool of credits. The system may further include a switch to route data packets on the communication buses from one of the functional modules to any other of the functional modules based upon the credits. In addition, any of the functional modules without credits to send the data packets on a particular channel may send a message to have the switch perform a route test.

Abstract: The exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides a storage buffer management scheme for I/O store buffers. Specifically, the storage buffer management system as described within the exemplary embodiment of the present invention is configured to comprise storage buffers that have the capability to efficiently support 128 byte or 256 byte I/O data transmission lines. The presently implemented storage buffer management scheme enables for a limited number of store buffers to be associated with a fixed number of storage state machines (i.e., queue positions) and thereafter the allowing for the matched pairs to be allocated in order to achieve maximum store throughput for varying combinations of store sizes of 128 and 256 bytes.

Abstract: In a computer system with multiple chips connected via a connection module with high speed elastic interface buses that support bus repair is enhanced by use of a spare net. Support is provided to ensure that the spare net can be tested in the same way that every normal bus net can be tested at all supported environments. It ensure that the system controller can find out what connections are bad and how to apply the controls to repair them for all tests and in the field for the customer.

Abstract: A system, method and computer program product for synchronizing adjustment of a time of day (TOD) clock for a computer system having multiple CPUs, each CPU having an associated physical clock providing a time base for executing operations that is stepping to a common oscillator, and an associated logical TOD clock. The method includes detecting propagation of a carry at a pre-determined bit position of the physical clock associated with a CPU in the computer system; and, updating, in response to the detecting of the pre-determined bit position carry, a TOD-clock offset value (d) to be added to a physical clock value (Tr) value to obtain a logical TOD clock value (Tb) for use by a CPU in the system. In this manner, each CPU computes a new logical TOD clock value in synchronization—the new logical TOD clock value taking effect simultaneously for the multiple CPUs.

Abstract: A method is provided for obtaining time-of-day (“TOD”) clock records on an information processing system. In accordance with such method, a first instruction is issued for recording a TOD clock value. In response to issuing the first instruction, a truncated version of a first current TOD clock value is obtained and recorded as a first TOD clock record, the first TOD clock value being a first current TOD clock value produced by a TOD clock running continuously on the information processing system. Thereafter, a second instruction is issued. In response to issuing the second instruction, a truncated version of a second current TOD clock value is obtained and recorded as a second TOD clock record, the second current TOD clock value being produced by the TOD clock, and the second TOD clock record being permitted to have the same value as the first TOD clock record.

Abstract: A method is provided for recording a list of facilities available to a program executing on an information processing system. In such method a storage location and a length of data are defined for recording the list of facilities by a program being executed on the information processing system. An instruction is issued by the program for determining the available facilities and recording the list of available facilities in accordance with the defined storage location and data length. A processor executes the instruction to determine the available facilities and record the list of facilities in accordance with the defined storage location and defined data length. The recorded list of facilities can then be read by the first program.

Abstract: A computer system with the means to identify based on the instruction being decoded that the operand data that this instruction will access by its nature will not have locality of access and should be installed in the cache in such a way that each successive line brought into the data cache that hits the same congruence class should be placed in the same set as to not disturb the locality of the data that resided in the cache prior to the execution of the instruction that accessed the data that will not have locality of access.

Abstract: A communications bus for a digital device includes a credit-based flow control mechanism, in which a sending component maintains a local record of its credits. Credits are returned to the sender by pulsing a single-bit credit return line. A separate mechanism provides a count of available credits from the receiver, the separate mechanism not necessarily being current. The local record is compared to the count of credits from the separate mechanism over a pre-determined time interval, failure of the two values to agree at any time during the interval indicating a probable credit discrepancy. A credit discrepancy is confirmed, preferably by suspending certain bus activity for a sufficiently long period to account for any delay in propagating credit value changes, and re-comparing the values.

Abstract: A communications bus for a digital device includes a credit-based flow control mechanism, in which a sending component maintains a local record of its credits. Credits are returned to the sender by pulsing a single-bit credit return line. A separate mechanism provides a count of available credits from the receiver, the separate mechanism not necessarily being current. The local record is compared to the count of credits from the separate mechanism over a pre-determined time interval, failure of the two values to agree at any time during the interval indicating a probable credit discrepancy. A credit discrepancy is confirmed, preferably by suspending certain bus activity for a sufficiently long period to account for any delay in propagating credit value changes, and re-comparing the values.

Abstract: A method of pre-aligning data for storage during instruction execution improves performance by eliminating the cycles otherwise required for data alignment. The method can convert data between ASCII and Packed Decimal format, and between Unicode Basic Latin and Packed Decimal format. Conversion to Packed Decimal format is needed for decimal hardware in a microprocessor designed to generate decimal results. Converting from Packed Decimal to ASCII and Unicode Basic Latin is necessary to report Decimal Arithmetic results in a required format for the application program. To further improve performance, all available write ports in the fixed point unit (FXU) are utilized to reduce the number of cycles necessary to store results. To prevent data fetching of the unused destination data from slowing down instruction execution, the destination locations are tested for storage access exceptions, but the data for these operands are not actually fetched.

Abstract: A computer architecture that provides the definition of a 20 bit signed displacement value used to form the operand storage address.

Abstract: A computer machine instruction is fetched and executed, the machine instruction having a signed field value wherein the signed field value comprises contiguous bit positions 1-N consisting of a contiguous most significant value contiguous with a contiguous embedded sign field, the embedded sign field contiguous with a contiguous least significant value. Preferably, the sign field is one bit, the contiguous most significant value comprises bit position N and the least significant value comprises bit position 1 wherein N is the least significant bit of the most significant value.

Abstract: A control mechanism for data bus communications employs channels to which bus transactions are assigned, each channel having independent flow control. The control mechanism enforces an ordering algorithm among channels, whereby at least some transactions may pass other transactions. Channel attributes are programmable to vary the ordering conditions. Preferably, each channel is allocated its own programmable buffer area. The control mechanism independently determines, for each channel, whether buffer space is available and enforces flow control independently for each channel accordingly. Flow control is preferably credit-based, credits representing buffer space or some other capacity of a receiver to receive data. Preferably, the flow control mechanism comprises a central interconnect module controlling internal communications of an integrated circuit chip.

Abstract: A system and method to re-fetch operand data lost for instructions with operands greater than eight bytes in length due to line invalidation due to storage update from a single or plurality of processors in a multiprocessor computer system using microprocessors that perform out of order operand fetch with respect to sequential program order in which it is not possible or desirable to kill the execution of the instruction when the storage access rules require that it appear that the operand data is accessed in program execution order.

Abstract: An integrated circuit chip includes multiple functional components and a central interconnect (CI) module. Each functional component communicates with the CI module via a respective internal bus sharing a common architecture which does not dictate any particular data alignment. The chip architecture defines an alignment mechanism within the CI module, which performs any required alignment of transmitted data. Alignment mechanism design parameters can be varied to accommodate different alignment domains of different functional components. Preferably, the common bus architecture supports multiple internal bus widths, the CI module performing any required bus width conversion. Preferably, for certain transactions not containing a data address, correct alignment is obtained by placing restrictions on transaction size and boundaries, and duplicating certain data on different alignment boundaries.