Electrical computers and digital processing systems: processing – Processing architecture – Array processor
Reexamination Certificate
1998-01-23
2001-01-30
Coleman, Eric (Department: 2783)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: processing
Processing architecture
Array processor
C712S013000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06182203
ABSTRACT:
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/036,482, filed Jan. 24, 1997.
This invention relates to data processing devices, electronic processing and control systems and methods of their manufacture and operation.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A microprocessor device is a central processing unit or CPU for a digital processor which is usually contained in a single semiconductor integrated circuit or “chip” fabricated by MOS/LSI technology, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,306, issued to Gary W. Boone and assigned to Texas Instruments Incorporated. The Boone patent shows a single-chip 8-bit CPU including a parallel ALU, registers for data and addresses, an instruction register and a control decoder, all interconnected using the von Neumann architecture and employing a bidirectional parallel bus for data, address and instructions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,074,351, issued to Gary W. Boone and Michael J. Cochran, assigned to Texas Instruments Incorporated, shows a single-chip “microcomputer” type device which contains a 4-bit parallel ALU and its control circuitry, with on-chip ROM for program storage and on-chip RAM for data storage, constructed in the Harvard architecture. The term microprocessor usually refers to a device employing external memory for program and data storage, while the term microcomputer refers to a device with on-chip ROM and RAM for program and data storage. In describing the instant invention, the term “microcomputer” will be used to include both types of devices, and the term “microprocessor” will be primarily used to refer to microcomputers without on-chip ROM. Since the terms are often used interchangeably in the art, however, it should be understood that the use of one of the other of these terms in this description should not be considered as restrictive as to the features of this invention.
Modem microcomputers can be grouped into two general classes, namely general-purpose microprocessors and special-purpose micro-computers/microprocessors. General-purpose microprocessors, such as the M68020 manufactured by Motorola, Inc. are designed to be programmable by the user to perform any of a wide range of tasks, and are therefore often used as the central processing unit in equipment such as personal computers. Such general-purpose microprocessors, while having good performance for a wide range of arithmetic and logical functions, are of course not specifically designed for or adapted to any particular one of such functions. In contrast, special-purpose microcomputers are designed to provide performance improvement for specific predetermined arithmetic and logical functions for which the user intends to use the microcomputer. By knowing the primary function of the microcomputer, the designer can structure the microcomputer in such a manner that the performance of the specific function by the special-purpose microcomputer greatly exceeds the performance of the same function by the general-purpose microprocessor regardless of the program created by the user.
One such function which can be performed by a special-purpose microcomputer at a greatly improved rate is digital signal processing, specifically the computations required for the implementation of digital filters and for performing Fast Fourier Transforms. Because such computations consist to a large degree of repetitive operations such as integer multiply, multiple-bit shift, and multiply-and-add, a special -purpose microcomputer can be constructed specifically adapted to these repetitive functions. Such a special-purpose microcomputer is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,282, assigned to Texas Instruments Incorporated and incorporated herein by reference. The specific design of a microcomputer for these computations has resulted in sufficient performance improvement over general purpose microprocessors to allow the use of such special-purpose microcomputers in real-time applications, such as speech and image processing.
Digital signal processing applications, because of their computation intensive nature, also are rather intensive in memory access operations. Accordingly, the overall performance of the microcomputer in performing a digital signal processing function is not only determined by the number of specific computations performed per unit time, but also by the speed at which the microcomputer can retrieve data from, and store data to, system memory. Prior special-purpose microcomputers, such as the one described in said U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,282, have utilized modified versions of a Harvard architecture, so that the access to data memory may be made independent from, and simultaneous with, the access of program memory. Such architecture has, of course provided for additional performance improvement.
The increasing demands of technology and the marketplace make desirable even further structural and process improvements in processing devices, application systems and methods of operation and manufacture.
Among the objects of the present invention are to provide improved data processing devices, systems and methods that reduce competition for processor resources between data acquisition, or output, functions and intensive computation operations; to provide improved data processing devices, systems and methods that reduce housekeeping overhead in a processor in high sample rate digital signal processing applications; to provide improved data processing devices, systems and methods for streamlining interrupt handling and subroutine calls and returns; and to provide improved data processing devices, systems and methods that increase processor bandwidth in telecommunications, control systems and other applications.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In general, one form of the invention is an improved data processing device that includes an improved very long instruction word (VLIW) electronic processor.
Generally, another form of the invention is a system of signal processing apparatus including an analog-to-digital converter for producing a digital signal corresponding to an analog input by a conversion process and for producing an interrupt signal when a conversion is complete. Digital processing circuitry having a memory and a processor connected to the analog-to-digital converter is responsive to the interrupt signal to enter the digital signal into memory. The processor includes registers sets, at least one multiplier and at least one arithmetic logic unit.
A microprocessor, comprising a first set of functional units capable of performing parallel data operations, a second set of functional units capable of performing parallel data operations, and a data interconnection path connecting the first and second functional units. A data processing system, comprising fetch circuitry for fetching a first plurality of instructions simultaneously, and circuitry capable of executing a second plurality of instructions simultaneously, wherein the second plurality of instructions is less than or equal to the first plurality of instructions. A data processing system, comprising fetch circuitry for fetching a first plurality of instructions simultaneously, and circuitry capable of conditionally executing a second plurality of instructions simultaneously, wherein the second plurality of instructions is less than or equal to the first plurality of instructions.
Other device, system and method forms of the invention are also disclosed and claimed herein. Other objects of the invention are disclosed and still other objects will be apparent from the disclosure herein.
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Siamak Arya, et al., “An Architecture for High Instruction Level Parallelism,” Proceedings of the 28thAnnual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 153-162, 1995.
“VLIW Architecture & Trace Scheduling Compilation—Technology Review” by Equator Technolo
Scales Richard H.
Seshan Natarajan
Simar, Jr. Laurence R.
Brady III W. James
Coleman Eric
Laws Gerald E.
Telecky , Jr. Frederick J.
Texas Instruments Incorporated
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