Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors

Details Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors

2006-11-01

2009-11-17

Chan, Eddie P (Department: 2183)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: processing

Instruction alignment

C712S223000, C712S225000, C712S226000, C712S005000

Reexamination Certificate

active

07620797

ABSTRACT:
One embodiment of the present invention provides a processor which is configured to execute load-swapped instructions, which are possibly directed to unaligned source address. The processor is configured to execute the load-swapped instruction by loading a vector from a naturally-aligned memory region encompassing the source address, and in doing so rotating the bytes of the vector to cause the byte at the specified source address to reside at the least-significant byte position within the vector for a little-endian memory transaction, or causing said byte to be positioned at the most-significant byte position within the vector for a big-endian memory transaction. In a variation on this embodiment, the processor is also configured to execute a store-swapped instruction directed to a destination address by storing a vector into a naturally-aligned memory region encompassing the destination address, and in doing so rotating the bytes of the vector to cause the least significant byte of the vector to be stored to at the specified destination address on a little-endian processor, or causing the most significant byte of the vector to be stored to the destination address said on a big-endian processor, or causing the specified byte to be stored to the destination address in the case of an endian-specific store-swapped variant.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4435792 (1984-03-01), Bechtolsheim
patent: 4823286 (1989-04-01), Lumelsky et al.
patent: 4903217 (1990-02-01), Gupta et al.
patent: 5450605 (1995-09-01), Grochowski et al.
patent: 5630083 (1997-05-01), Carbine et al.
patent: 5751981 (1998-05-01), Witt et al.
patent: 5758116 (1998-05-01), Lee et al.
patent: 6049860 (2000-04-01), Krygowski et al.
patent: 6336178 (2002-01-01), Favor
patent: 6453278 (2002-09-01), Favor et al.
patent: 6496923 (2002-12-01), Gruner et al.
patent: 7051168 (2006-05-01), Gschwind et al.
patent: 7219212 (2007-05-01), Sanghavi et al.
patent: 7301369 (2007-11-01), Kanno et al.
patent: 7302552 (2007-11-01), Guffens et al.
patent: 2003/0056064 (2003-03-01), Gschwind et al.
patent: 2005/0257028 (2005-11-01), Guffens et al.
patent: 2007/0079305 (2007-04-01), Duerinckx
patent: 2007/0106881 (2007-05-01), Thornton
patent: 2007/0115150 (2007-05-01), Kanno et al.
patent: 2007/0124722 (2007-05-01), Gschwind
patent: 2007/0186077 (2007-08-01), Gschwind et al.
patent: 2007/0233766 (2007-10-01), Gschwind

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Instructions for efficiently accessing unaligned vectors will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-4123494