Patent Application
20240045654
In recent years fused-multiply-add (FMA) units with lower-precision multiplications and higher-precision accumulation have proven useful in machine learning/artificial intelligence applications, most notably in training deep neural networks due to their extreme computational intensity. Compared to classical IEEE-754 32-bit (FP32) and 64-bit (FP64) arithmetic, this reduced precision arithmetic can naturally be sped up disproportional to their shortened width.
Various embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure will be described with reference to the drawings, in which:
The present disclosure relates to methods, apparatus, systems, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for performing arithmetic operations using 8-bit floating point (FP8) source data elements. FP8 is gaining traction due to its ability to work well in machine learning algorithms, in particular deep learning training.
In contrast to the IEEE 754 standardized 16-bit (FP16) variant, BF16 does not compromise on range when being compared to FP32. FP32 numbers have 8 bits of exponent and 24 bits of mantissa (including the one implicit). BF16 cuts 16 bits from the 24-bit FP32 mantissa to create a 16-bit floating point datatype. In contrast FP16, roughly halves the FP32 mantissa to 10 explicit bits and reduces the exponent to 5 bits to fit the 16-bit datatype envelope.
Although BF16 offers less precision than FP16, it is typically better suited to support deep learning tasks. FP16's range is not enough to accomplish deep learning training out-of-the-box due to its limited range. BF16 does not suffer from this issue and the limited precision may actually help to generalize the learned weights in the neural net training task. In other words, lower precision can be seen as offering a built-in regularization property.
In some examples, an 8-bit floating point format (FP8) provides some advantages over a larger floating point format. For example, an 8-bit floating point format may reduce pressure on memory and bandwidth used for machine learning (such as weights, activations, and gradient values used for training and/or inference of neural networks). As shown, the IEEE and BF16 formats have a fixed number of bits allocated to the fraction (or mantissa which is the fraction bits+1 bit) and exponent fields. Additionally, in some examples, a fixed exponent bias may be provided for a FP16 or BF16 number. As eight bits allows for a small number of mantissa and exponent bits than FP16 or BF16 it may be advantageous to have some variance in FP8 formats (e.g., ensure high accuracy and convergence when training machine learning models).
In machine learning, different parameters, namely weights, gradients and activations, have different precision and range requirements to achieve high training accuracy and/or convergence. This allows for different allocations of the number of exponent and fraction (mantissa bits) depending on the parameter being represented.
An example FP8 format is shown in 107. In some examples, this is called a bfloat8-bit floating point (HF8) format. As shown, this format uses 1 bit for a sign, 5 bits for the exponent, and 2 bits for the fraction (or 1+2 bits for the mantissa). An example FP8 format is shown in 109. In some examples, this is called a hybrid8-bit floating point (HF8) format. As shown, this format uses 1 bit for a sign, 4 bits for the exponent, and 3 bits for the fraction (or 1+3 bits for the mantissa).
Normalized numbers, subnormal (denormal) numbers, and zeroes are supported in both FP8 formats. In some examples, infinity and not-a-number (NaN) encodings are not supported, however, in some examples one or more are. In examples where infinities are not supported, a maximum exponent value is not reserved for encoding NaN and +/− infinity and just used to represent normalized floating-point numbers.
In examples where infinities and NaN are supported, the are mapped to 0x80. In some examples, for a NaN on an overflow, the value may be upconverted to IEEE754 NaN. In some examples, infinities and NaN raise exceptions for a hardware status register to delineate NaN from overflow.
In some examples, a zero is represented by an encoding with all zeroes the exponent and the fraction. Encodings with an all zero exponent and non-zero fraction represent denormal numbers. In the BF8 format, an exponent=00002 and mantissa=0002 represents numerical value of zero, while exponent=00002 and mantissa=0012, 0102, 0112, 1002, 1012, 1102, and 1112 represent the denormal numbers. Similarly, in the HF8 format an exponent=000002 and mantissa=002 represents numerical value of zero, while exponent=000002 and mantissa=012, 102, and 112 represent the denormal numbers.
In some examples, the FP8 formats utilize a variable exponential bias (e.g., a 6-bit unsigned integer value used as a bias). A bias skews the range of representable values more on the smaller numeric values at the expense of larger numerical values. In these examples, a numerical value of a normalized floating point number is (1)sign×2exponent-bias×1.mantissa and the numerical value of a denormal floating point number is (1)sign×2exponent-bias×0.mantissa. In some examples, the bias is provided by one or more packed data registers (e.g., SIMD or vector) where each data element position of the one or more packed data registers is to provides a bias value for a corresponding data element position of a source and/or destination. In some examples, the bias is provided by one or more general purpose registers where each general purpose register provides a bias to be used for each data element of a particular source and/or destination. Note that in some examples, a single general purpose register is used for a plurality of sources and/or destination. In some examples, the maximum bias is 16 for BF8 and 8 for HF8.
In some examples, not-a-number (NANs) and infinities are defined similarly to other IEEE floating points format, using an all-ones exponents. However, it is also acceptable in some examples to define versions of instructions that support other formats where “negative zero” is used to denote NANs and infinities, and the all-ones exponent is used to encode normal floating point numbers.
In some examples, hardware support for FP8 supports one or more status (condition code) flags: invalid, denormal, overflow, and underflow. An arithmetic operation with a denormal operand will set the denormal exception flag, while an arithmetic operation with any NaN operand or no useful definable result will set the invalid exception flag. An arithmetic operation with a result that that overflows or underflows a destination will set the overflow and underflow exception flags respectively in some examples.
Recent work has also shown that 8-bit float point formats, such as BF8 (using a 1-5-2 format (1-bit sign, 5-bit exponent, and 2-bit fraction or a 1-4-3 format), are a viable option for input data for mixed precision computation such as fused multiply-add (FMA) with BF8 inputs and a FP32 accumulator. To prepare higher-precision outputs to be used as the next operation's inputs, in some embodiments, those outputs need to be converted/rounded to FP8 numbers. Using 8-bit floating-point format instead of single- precision in at least some matrix operations is expected to alleviate memory utilization and bandwidth issues while providing a non-trivial performance upside (e.g., on the order of 2X) even during the compute operation. Additionally, numerical accuracy studies have shown that the precision of the Deep Learning application is not compromised. However, extensive workload studies have shown, that from time to time its required to avoid classic round-to-nearest behavior during these down converts. Instead, a stochastic rounding operation is needed. Examples herein relate to conversion using a provided bias term, including variable in-place, 2nd source merging and/or saturating.
Current experiments show bandwidth issues on the various cache levels and DRAM. So, as matrix compute capabilities speed up significantly (2X), the memory sub-systems capabilities only increase modestly due to reduce memory footprint. However, it has been found important to achieve convergence that FMAs accumulate into single-precision, IEEE float32. That means it may be important down-convert a result to FP8 after the operation completes.
In some examples, BF8-based operations support round to nearest even (RNE) and stochastic rounding. In some examples, HF8-based operations support round to nearest even (RNE) and stochastic rounding. In some examples, hybrid operations using both HF8 and BF8 are supported.
Detailed herein are embodiments of instructions, and their support, that operate on FP8 source data elements by performing one of an addition, subtraction, multiplication, divisional, or calculation of a reciprocal. In some embodiments, instructions are defined such as their execution is to treat denormal inputs or outputs as zeros, support any rounding mode, and/or report or suppress floating point numerical flags. In some examples, no upconversion, and/or biasing (variable or static), etc. is needed for these instructions to operate. In some examples, upconversion/downconversion, and/or biasing (variable or static), etc. is needed. Additionally, while exact arithmetic operations may be performed (such as add, divide, multiply, subtract) a final result to be stored may be rounded.
In this example, the packed data sources 201 and 203 include 8 packed data elements each of which is in FP8 format. The packed data sources 201 and 203 may be a register or a memory location. In some embodiments, when the second source 203 is a memory location, the numbers of bytes (e.g., 1 byte) at the specified address corresponding to the length of the chosen vector register size is/are loaded from memory or a scalar value at the specified address is loaded from memory and broadcasted to all entries of the vector register (e.g., using broadcast circuitry 211). In some embodiments, both of those variants cause a load of a temporal vector register and then the operation proceeds as if operating on 3 vector registers. An embodiment may choose different micro-architectural for handling a fused memory operand.
The packed data sources 201 and 203 (or temporal register variant) are fed into execution circuitry 209 to be operated on. In some examples, FP8 values are upconverted using upconvert circuitry 212. In some examples, a (variable or static) bias 205 is applied during the upconversion. In some examples, the upconversion is to FP16. In some examples, the upconversion is to BF16. In some examples, the upconversion is to FP32.
The execution circuitry 209 performs a corresponding per data element position addition (e.g., using addition circuitry 214), multiplication (e.g., using multiplication circuitry 216), subtraction (e.g., using subtraction circuitry 215), or division (e.g., using division circuitry 217) according to the {ARITH} indication of the opcode.
In some embodiments, this execution uses a round to nearest (even) rounding mode. In some embodiments, output denormals are always flushed to zero and input denormals are always treated as zero. In some examples, the arithmetic circuitry 213 natively supports FP8. In some examples, the arithmetic circuitry 213 requires an upconverted value (e.g., FP16, BF16, FP32, etc.).
In some examples, results of the arithmetic operation are downconvered using downconvert circuitry 218. In some examples, a bias (variable or static) 205 is applied during the downconversion. In some examples, the downconversion is from FP16. In some examples, the downconversion is from BF16. In some examples, the downconversion is from FP32. In other examples, when FP8 is natively support, no downconversion is performed. A packed data destination 231 is written to store the resultant arithmetic operation in corresponding packed data elements as the packed data source 201. In some embodiments, when the instruction calls for the use of predication or writemasking, a writemask (or predicate) register 231 dictates how the resultant arithmetic operation values are stored and/or zeroed using the writemask circuitry 221.
In some examples, the execution circuitry 209 is configured according to control information to use one or more of the described components instead of other execution circuits 219. The control information may be provided by a decoder, scheduler, etc.
At 301 an instruction (of a first instruction set architecture) is fetched having fields for an opcode, an identification of a location of a first packed data source operand, an identification of a location of a second packed data source operand, and an identification of location of a packed data destination operand, wherein the opcode is to indicate an arithmetic operation execution circuitry is to perform, for each data element position of the identified packed data source operands, the arithmetic operation on FP8 data elements in that data element position and store a result of each arithmetic operation into a corresponding data element position of the identified packed data destination operand. In some examples, FP8 data elements are upscaled (e.g., to FP16, BF16, FP32, etc.) and the arithmetic operation is performed on the upscaled values. In some examples, the result of each arithmetic operation is downconverted to FP8 prior to storing. In some examples, storage is subject to a writemask.
An embodiment of a format for a perform an arithmetic operation on BF16 data elements instruction is V{ARITH}NEPFP8 DST{k}, SRC1, SRC2. In some embodiments, V{ARITH}NEPFP8 is the opcode mnemonic of the instruction. DST is a field for the destination operand identifier, such as packed data register or memory. SRC1 and SRC2 are fields for the source operands identifiers, such as packed data registers and/or memory. In some examples, the opcode is provided by at least field 1703, DST field is provided by field at least 1844, the first source is provided by bits VVVV of one of 2105, BPJ17, or 2217, and the second source is provided by at least 1846. In some examples, the opcode is provided by at least field 1703, DST field is provided by at least field 1844, the first source is provided by bits VVVV of one of 2105, BPJ17, or 2217, and the second source is a memory location provided by at least 1846 and/or the SIB byte 1804. The source operands and destination operand may come in one or more sizes such as 128-bit, 256-bit, 512-bit, etc. The {k} is used when writemasking or predication is used.
In some embodiments, the fetched instruction, of a first ISA, is translated into one or more instructions of a second, different ISA at 303. The one or more instructions of the second, different ISA, when executed, provided the same result as if the fetched instruction had been executed. Note the translation may be performed by hardware, software, or a combination thereof.
The instruction (or the translated one or more instructions) is/are decoded 305. This decoding may cause the generation of one or more micro-operations to be performed.
Data values associated with the source operand of the decoded instruction are retrieved at 307. For example, when a source operand is stored in memory, the data from the indicated memory location is retrieved.
At 309, the decoded instruction(s) is/are executed by execution circuitry (hardware) such as that detailed herein. The execution circuitry is to perform, for each data element position of the identified packed data source operands, the arithmetic operation on FP8 data elements in that data element position and store a result of each arithmetic operation into a corresponding data element position of the identified packed data destination operand. In some examples, the data elements are upscaled (e.g., to BF16, FP16, FP32, etc.) prior to the arithmetic operation. In some examples, results are downscaled prior to storage.
In some embodiments, the instruction is committed or retired at 311.
An embodiment of a format for a calculate an approximate reciprocal of FP8 data elements instruction is VRCPNEPFP8 DST{k}, SRC. In some embodiments, VRCPNEPFP8 is the opcode mnemonic of the instruction. DST is a field for the destination operand identifier, such as packed data register or memory. SRC1 is a field for the source operands identifier, such as a packed data register and/or memory. In some examples, the opcode is provided by at least field 1703, DST field is provided by field 1844, the first source is provided by bits VVVV of one of 2105, BPJ17, or 2217. In some examples, the opcode is provided by at least field 1703, DST field is provided by field 1844, the first source is provided by bits VVVV of one of 2105, BPJ17, or 2217, and/or at least 1846 and/or the SIB byte 1804. The source operands and destination operand may come in one or more sizes such as 128-bit, 256-bit, 512-bit, etc. The {k} is used when writemasking or predication is used.
In this example, the packed data source 801 includes 8 packed data elements each of which is in FP8 format. The packed data source 801 may be a register or a memory location. In some examples, FP8 values are upconverted using upconvert circuitry 812. In some examples, a (variable or static) bias 805 is applied during the upconversion. In some examples, the upconversion is to FP16. In some examples, the upconversion is to BF16. In some examples, the upconversion is to FP32.
The packed data source 801 is fed into execution circuitry 809 to be operated on.
In particular, execution circuitry 809 performs a calculation of an approximate reciprocal for each of the packed data elements. In some embodiments, this execution of the instruction uses a round to nearest (even) rounding mode. In some embodiments, output denormals are always flushed to zero and input denormals are always treated as zero. In some examples, the arithmetic circuitry 213 natively supports FP8. In some examples, the arithmetic circuitry 213 requires an upconverted value (e.g., FP16, BF16, FP32, etc.).
In some examples, results of the arithmetic operation are downconvered using downconvert circuitry 218. In some examples, a (variable or static) bias 205 is applied during the downconversion. In some examples, the downconversion is from FP16. In some examples, the downconversion is from BF16. In some examples, the downconversion is from FP32. In other examples, when FP8 is natively support, no downconversion is performed.
A packed data destination 831 is written to store the resultant FP8-formated approximate reciprocal in corresponding packed data elements as the packed data source 701. In some embodiments, when the instruction calls for the use of predication or writemasking, a writemask (or predicate) register 831 dictates how the resultant FP8-approximate reciprocals are stored and/or zeroed using the writemask circuitry 821.
In some examples, the execution circuitry 809 is configured according to control information to use one or more of the described components instead of other execution circuits 819. The control information may be provided by a decoder, scheduler, etc.
At 901 an instruction is fetched having fields for an opcode, an identification of a location of a packed data source operand, and an identification of location of a packed data destination operand, wherein the opcode is to indicate execution circuitry is to perform, for each data element position of the identified packed data source operand, a computation of an approximate reciprocal on a FP8 data element in that data element position and store the approximate reciprocal into a corresponding data element position of the identified packed data destination operand.
In some embodiments, the fetched instruction, of a first ISA, is translated into one or more instructions of a second, different ISA at 903. The one or more instructions of the second, different ISA, when executed, provided the same result as if the fetched instruction had been executed. Note the translation may be performed by hardware, software, or a combination thereof.
The instruction (or the translated one or more instructions) is/are decoded 905. This decoding may cause the generation of one or more micro-operations to be performed. Note that as this instruction
Data values associated with the source operand of the decoded instruction are retrieved at 907. For example, when a source operand is stored in memory, the data from the indicated memory location is retrieved.
At 909, the decoded instruction(s) is/are executed by execution circuitry (hardware) such as that detailed herein. The execution circuitry is to perform, for each data element position of the identified packed data source operand, a computation of an approximate reciprocal on a FP8 data element in that data element position and store the approximate reciprocal into a corresponding data element position of the identified packed data destination operand.
In some embodiments, the instruction is committed or retired at +11.
One or more of the instruction 1101 is/are received by decode circuitry 1105. For example, the decode circuitry 1105 receives this instruction from fetch logic/circuitry. The instruction includes fields for an opcode, first and second sources, and a destination. In some embodiments, the sources and destination are registers, and in other embodiments one or more are memory locations. In some embodiments, the opcode details which arithmetic operation is to be performed. Note that the decode circuitry 1105 is capable of decoding other instructions 1002.
More detailed embodiments of at least one instruction format will be detailed later. The decode circuitry 1105 decodes the instruction into one or more operations. In some embodiments, this decoding includes generating a plurality of micro-operations to be performed by execution circuitry (such as execution circuitry 1109). The decode circuitry 1105 also decodes instruction prefixes.
In some embodiments, register renaming, register allocation, and/or scheduling circuitry 1107 provides functionality for one or more of: 1) renaming logical operand values to physical operand values (e.g., a register alias table in some embodiments), 2) allocating status bits and flags to the decoded instruction, and 3) scheduling the decoded instruction for execution on execution circuitry out of an instruction pool (e.g., using a reservation station in some embodiments).
Registers (register file) and/or memory 1108 store data as operands of the instruction to be operated on by execution circuitry 1109. Exemplary register types include packed data registers, general purpose registers, and floating-point registers.
Execution circuitry 1109 executes the decoded instruction. Exemplary detailed execution circuitry is shown in
In some embodiments, retirement/write back circuitry 1111 architecturally commits the result and retires the instruction.
As noted above, in some examples FP8 data elements are upscaled by upconversion circuitry and/or 16-bit or 32-bit data elements downscaled by downconversion circuitry. Detailed below are example pseudocode representing acts the conversion circuitries perform. In some examples, this pseudocode is usable to create such circuitry (other pseudocode also be used to create circuitry such as aspects of execution circuitry in some examples). In the code below, the input is a data element, an indication of the FP8 type, a bias, and an indication of NaN handling. Note that this is merely illustrative and some aspects may not be included (for example, the BF8 or HF8 may be indicated by the helper function itself). Note that use of variants of convert (e.g., CVT, UPSCALE), DOWNSCALE may be used in other places. For example, in some of the pseudocode the helper function is merely UPSCALE or DOWNSCALE and one or more of the helper functions below may be used in its place including the use of a bias.
The instructions detailed above may be used in a variety of computer architectures and environments, utilize one or more instruction formats, etc. Examples of architectures, formats, etc. that support these instructions are detailed below.
Detailed below are descriptions of example computer architectures. Other system designs and configurations known in the arts for laptop, desktop, and handheld personal computers (PC)s, personal digital assistants, engineering workstations, servers, disaggregated servers, network devices, network hubs, switches, routers, embedded processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), graphics devices, video game devices, set-top boxes, micro controllers, cell phones, portable media players, hand-held devices, and various other electronic devices, are also suitable. In general, a variety of systems or electronic devices capable of incorporating a processor and/or other execution logic as disclosed herein are generally suitable.
Processors 1270 and 1280 are shown including integrated memory controller (IMC) circuitry 1272 and 1282, respectively. Processor 1270 also includes interface circuits 1276 and 1278; similarly, second processor 1280 includes interface circuits 1286 and 1288. Processors 1270, 1280 may exchange information via the interface 1250 using interface circuits 1278, 1288. IMCs 1272 and 1282 couple the processors 1270, 1280 to respective memories, namely a memory 1232 and a memory 1234, which may be portions of main memory locally attached to the respective processors.
Processors 1270, 1280 may each exchange information with a network interface (NW I/F) 1290 via individual interfaces 1252, 1254 using interface circuits 1276, 1294, 1286, 1298. The network interface 1290 (e.g., one or more of an interconnect, bus, and/or fabric, and in some examples is a chipset) may optionally exchange information with a coprocessor 1238 via an interface circuit 1292. In some examples, the coprocessor 1238 is a special-purpose processor, such as, for example, a high-throughput processor, a network or communication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, general purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU), neural-network processing unit (NPU), embedded processor, or the like.
A shared cache (not shown) may be included in either processor 1270, 1280 or outside of both processors, yet connected with the processors via an interface such as P-P interconnect, such that either or both processors' local cache information may be stored in the shared cache if a processor is placed into a low power mode.
Network interface 1290 may be coupled to a first interface 1216 via interface circuit 1296. In some examples, first interface 1216 may be an interface such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interconnect, a PCI Express interconnect or another I/O interconnect. In some examples, first interface 1216 is coupled to a power control unit (PCU) 1217, which may include circuitry, software, and/or firmware to perform power management operations with regard to the processors 1270, 1280 and/or co-processor 1238. PCU 1217 provides control information to a voltage regulator (not shown) to cause the voltage regulator to generate the appropriate regulated voltage. PCU 1217 also provides control information to control the operating voltage generated. In various examples, PCU 1217 may include a variety of power management logic units (circuitry) to perform hardware-based power management. Such power management may be wholly processor controlled (e.g., by various processor hardware, and which may be triggered by workload and/or power, thermal or other processor constraints) and/or the power management may be performed responsive to external sources (such as a platform or power management source or system software).
PCU 1217 is illustrated as being present as logic separate from the processor 1270 and/or processor 1280. In other cases, PCU 1217 may execute on a given one or more of cores (not shown) of processor 1270 or 1280. In some cases, PCU 1217 may be implemented as a microcontroller (dedicated or general-purpose) or other control logic configured to execute its own dedicated power management code, sometimes referred to as P-code. In yet other examples, power management operations to be performed by PCU 1217 may be implemented externally to a processor, such as by way of a separate power management integrated circuit (PMIC) or another component external to the processor. In yet other examples, power management operations to be performed by PCU 1217 may be implemented within BIOS or other system software.
Various I/O devices 1214 may be coupled to first interface 1216, along with a bus bridge 1218 which couples first interface 1216 to a second interface 1220. In some examples, one or more additional processor(s) 1215, such as coprocessors, high throughput many integrated core (MIC) processors, GPGPUs, accelerators (such as graphics accelerators or digital signal processing (DSP) units), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or any other processor, are coupled to first interface 1216. In some examples, second interface 1220 may be a low pin count (LPC) interface. Various devices may be coupled to second interface 1220 including, for example, a keyboard and/or mouse 1222, communication devices 1227 and storage circuitry 1228. Storage circuitry 1228 may be one or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media as described below, such as a disk drive or other mass storage device which may include instructions/code and data 1230 and may implement the storage ‘ISAB03 in some examples. Further, an audio I/O 1224 may be coupled to second interface 1220. Note that other architectures than the point-to-point architecture described above are possible. For example, instead of the point-to-point architecture, a system such as multiprocessor system 1200 may implement a multi-drop interface or other such architecture.
Processor cores may be implemented in different ways, for different purposes, and in different processors. For instance, implementations of such cores may include: 1) a general purpose in-order core intended for general-purpose computing; 2) a high-performance general purpose out-of-order core intended for general-purpose computing; 3) a special purpose core intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput) computing. Implementations of different processors may include: 1) a CPU including one or more general purpose in-order cores intended for general-purpose computing and/or one or more general purpose out-of-order cores intended for general-purpose computing; and 2) a coprocessor including one or more special purpose cores intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput) computing. Such different processors lead to different computer system architectures, which may include: 1) the coprocessor on a separate chip from the CPU; 2) the coprocessor on a separate die in the same package as a CPU; 3) the coprocessor on the same die as a CPU (in which case, such a coprocessor is sometimes referred to as special purpose logic, such as integrated graphics and/or scientific (throughput) logic, or as special purpose cores); and 4) a system on a chip (SoC) that may be included on the same die as the described CPU (sometimes referred to as the application core(s) or application processor(s)), the above described coprocessor, and additional functionality. Example core architectures are described next, followed by descriptions of example processors and computer architectures.
Thus, different implementations of the processor 1300 may include: 1) a CPU with the special purpose logic 1308 being integrated graphics and/or scientific (throughput) logic (which may include one or more cores, not shown), and the cores 1302(A)-(N) being one or more general purpose cores (e.g., general purpose in-order cores, general purpose out-of-order cores, or a combination of the two); 2) a coprocessor with the cores 1302(A)-(N) being a large number of special purpose cores intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput); and 3) a coprocessor with the cores 1302(A)-(N) being a large number of general purpose in-order cores. Thus, the processor 1300 may be a general-purpose processor, coprocessor or special-purpose processor, such as, for example, a network or communication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, GPGPU (general purpose graphics processing unit), a high throughput many integrated core (MIC) coprocessor (including 30 or more cores), embedded processor, or the like. The processor may be implemented on one or more chips. The processor 1300 may be a part of and/or may be implemented on one or more substrates using any of a number of process technologies, such as, for example, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS), P-type metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS), or N-type metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS).
A memory hierarchy includes one or more levels of cache unit(s) circuitry 1304(A)-(N) within the cores 1302(A)-(N), a set of one or more shared cache unit(s) circuitry 1306, and external memory (not shown) coupled to the set of integrated memory controller unit(s) circuitry 1314. The set of one or more shared cache unit(s) circuitry 1306 may include one or more mid-level caches, such as level 2 (L2), level 3 (L3), level 4 (L4), or other levels of cache, such as a last level cache (LLC), and/or combinations thereof. While in some examples interface network circuitry 1312 (e.g., a ring interconnect) interfaces the special purpose logic 1308 (e.g., integrated graphics logic), the set of shared cache unit(s) circuitry 1306, and the system agent unit circuitry 1310, alternative examples use any number of well-known techniques for interfacing such units. In some examples, coherency is maintained between one or more of the shared cache unit(s) circuitry 1306 and cores 1302(A)-(N). In some examples, interface controller units circuitry 1316 couple the cores 1302 to one or more other devices 1318 such as one or more I/O devices, storage, one or more communication devices (e.g., wireless networking, wired networking, etc.), etc.
In some examples, one or more of the cores 1302(A)-(N) are capable of multi-threading. The system agent unit circuitry 1310 includes those components coordinating and operating cores 1302(A)-(N). The system agent unit circuitry 1310 may include, for example, power control unit (PCU) circuitry and/or display unit circuitry (not shown). The PCU may be or may include logic and components needed for regulating the power state of the cores 1302(A)-(N) and/or the special purpose logic 1308 (e.g., integrated graphics logic). The display unit circuitry is for driving one or more externally connected displays.
The cores 1302(A)-(N) may be homogenous in terms of instruction set architecture (ISA). Alternatively, the cores 1302(A)-(N) may be heterogeneous in terms of ISA; that is, a subset of the cores 1302(A)-(N) may be capable of executing an ISA, while other cores may be capable of executing only a subset of that ISA or another ISA.
In
By way of example, the example register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution architecture core of
The front-end unit circuitry 1430 may include branch prediction circuitry 1432 coupled to instruction cache circuitry 1434, which is coupled to an instruction translation lookaside buffer (TLB) 1436, which is coupled to instruction fetch circuitry 1438, which is coupled to decode circuitry 1440. In one example, the instruction cache circuitry 1434 is included in the memory unit circuitry 1470 rather than the front-end circuitry 1430. The decode circuitry 1440 (or decoder) may decode instructions, and generate as an output one or more micro-operations, micro-code entry points, microinstructions, other instructions, or other control signals, which are decoded from, or which otherwise reflect, or are derived from, the original instructions. The decode circuitry 1440 may further include address generation unit (AGU, not shown) circuitry. In one example, the AGU generates an LSU address using forwarded register ports, and may further perform branch forwarding (e.g., immediate offset branch forwarding, LR register branch forwarding, etc.). The decode circuitry 1440 may be implemented using various different mechanisms. Examples of suitable mechanisms include, but are not limited to, look-up tables, hardware implementations, programmable logic arrays (PLAs), microcode read only memories (ROMs), etc. In one example, the core 1490 includes a microcode ROM (not shown) or other medium that stores microcode for certain macroinstructions (e.g., in decode circuitry 1440 or otherwise within the front-end circuitry 1430). In one example, the decode circuitry 1440 includes a micro-operation (micro-op) or operation cache (not shown) to hold/cache decoded operations, micro-tags, or micro-operations generated during the decode or other stages of the processor pipeline 1400. The decode circuitry 1440 may be coupled to rename/allocator unit circuitry 1452 in the execution engine circuitry 1450.
The execution engine circuitry 1450 includes the rename/allocator unit circuitry 1452 coupled to retirement unit circuitry 1454 and a set of one or more scheduler(s) circuitry 1456. The scheduler(s) circuitry 1456 represents any number of different schedulers, including reservations stations, central instruction window, etc. In some examples, the scheduler(s) circuitry 1456 can include arithmetic logic unit (ALU) scheduler/scheduling circuitry, ALU queues, address generation unit (AGU) scheduler/scheduling circuitry, AGU queues, etc. The scheduler(s) circuitry 1456 is coupled to the physical register file(s) circuitry 1458. Each of the physical register file(s) circuitry 1458 represents one or more physical register files, different ones of which store one or more different data types, such as scalar integer, scalar floating-point, packed integer, packed floating-point, vector integer, vector floating-point, status (e.g., an instruction pointer that is the address of the next instruction to be executed), etc. In one example, the physical register file(s) circuitry 1458 includes vector registers unit circuitry, writemask registers unit circuitry, and scalar register unit circuitry. These register units may provide architectural vector registers, vector mask registers, general-purpose registers, etc. The physical register file(s) circuitry 1458 is coupled to the retirement unit circuitry 1454 (also known as a retire queue or a retirement queue) to illustrate various ways in which register renaming and out-of-order execution may be implemented (e.g., using a reorder buffer(s) (ROB(s)) and a retirement register file(s); using a future file(s), a history buffer(s), and a retirement register file(s); using a register maps and a pool of registers; etc.). The retirement unit circuitry 1454 and the physical register file(s) circuitry 1458 are coupled to the execution cluster(s) 1460. The execution cluster(s) 1460 includes a set of one or more execution unit(s) circuitry 1462 and a set of one or more memory access circuitry 1464. The execution unit(s) circuitry 1462 may perform various arithmetic, logic, floating-point or other types of operations (e.g., shifts, addition, subtraction, multiplication) and on various types of data (e.g., scalar integer, scalar floating-point, packed integer, packed floating-point, vector integer, vector floating-point). While some examples may include a number of execution units or execution unit circuitry dedicated to specific functions or sets of functions, other examples may include only one execution unit circuitry or multiple execution units/execution unit circuitry that all perform all functions. The scheduler(s) circuitry 1456, physical register file(s) circuitry 1458, and execution cluster(s) 1460 are shown as being possibly plural because certain examples create separate pipelines for certain types of data/operations (e.g., a scalar integer pipeline, a scalar floating-point/packed integer/packed floating-point/vector integer/vector floating-point pipeline, and/or a memory access pipeline that each have their own scheduler circuitry, physical register file(s) circuitry, and/or execution cluster—and in the case of a separate memory access pipeline, certain examples are implemented in which only the execution cluster of this pipeline has the memory access unit(s) circuitry 1464). It should also be understood that where separate pipelines are used, one or more of these pipelines may be out-of-order issue/execution and the rest in-order.
In some examples, the execution engine unit circuitry 1450 may perform load store unit (LSU) address/data pipelining to an Advanced Microcontroller Bus (AMB) interface (not shown), and address phase and writeback, data phase load, store, and branches.
The set of memory access circuitry 1464 is coupled to the memory unit circuitry 1470, which includes data TLB circuitry 1472 coupled to data cache circuitry 1474 coupled to level 2 (L2) cache circuitry 1476. In one example, the memory access circuitry 1464 may include load unit circuitry, store address unit circuitry, and store data unit circuitry, each of which is coupled to the data TLB circuitry 1472 in the memory unit circuitry 1470. The instruction cache circuitry 1434 is further coupled to the level 2 (L2) cache circuitry 1476 in the memory unit circuitry 1470. In one example, the instruction cache 1434 and the data cache 1474 are combined into a single instruction and data cache (not shown) in L2 cache circuitry 1476, level 3 (L3) cache circuitry (not shown), and/or main memory. The L2 cache circuitry 1476 is coupled to one or more other levels of cache and eventually to a main memory.
The core 1490 may support one or more instructions sets (e.g., the x86 instruction set architecture (optionally with some extensions that have been added with newer versions); the MIPS instruction set architecture; the ARM instruction set architecture (optionally with optional additional extensions such as NEON)), including the instruction(s) described herein. In one example, the core 1490 includes logic to support a packed data instruction set architecture extension (e.g., AVX1, AVX2), thereby allowing the operations used by many multimedia applications to be performed using packed data.
In some examples, the register architecture 1600 includes writemask/predicate registers 1615. For example, in some examples, there are 8 writemask/predicate registers (sometimes called k0 through k7) that are each 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, or 128-bit in size. Writemask/predicate registers 1615 may allow for merging (e.g., allowing any set of elements in the destination to be protected from updates during the execution of any operation) and/or zeroing (e.g., zeroing vector masks allow any set of elements in the destination to be zeroed during the execution of any operation). In some examples, each data element position in a given writemask/predicate register 1615 corresponds to a data element position of the destination. In other examples, the writemask/predicate registers 1615 are scalable and consists of a set number of enable bits for a given vector element (e.g., 8 enable bits per 64-bit vector element).
The register architecture 1600 includes a plurality of general-purpose registers 1625. These registers may be 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, etc. and can be used for scalar operations. In some examples, these registers are referenced by the names RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX, RBP, RSI, RDI, RSP, and R8 through R15.
In some examples, the register architecture 1600 includes scalar floating-point (FP) register file 1645 which is used for scalar floating-point operations on 32/64/80-bit floating-point data using the x87 instruction set architecture extension or as MMX registers to perform operations on 64-bit packed integer data, as well as to hold operands for some operations performed between the MMX and XMM registers.
One or more flag registers 1640 (e.g., EFLAGS, RFLAGS, etc.) store status and control information for arithmetic, compare, and system operations. For example, the one or more flag registers 1640 may store condition code information such as carry, parity, auxiliary carry, zero, sign, and overflow. In some examples, the one or more flag registers 1640 are called program status and control registers.
Segment registers 1620 contain segment points for use in accessing memory. In some examples, these registers are referenced by the names CS, DS, SS, ES, FS, and GS.
Model specific registers or machine specific registers (MSRs) 1635 control and report on processor performance. Most MSRs 1635 handle system-related functions and are not accessible to an application program. For example, MSRs may provide control for one or more of: performance-monitoring counters, debug extensions, memory type range registers, thermal and power management, instruction-specific support, and/or processor feature/mode support. Machine check registers 1660 consist of control, status, and error reporting MSRs that are used to detect and report on hardware errors. Control register(s) 1655 (e.g., CRO-CR4) determine the operating mode of a processor (e.g., processor 1270, 1280, 1238, 1215, and/or 1300) and the characteristics of a currently executing task. In some examples, MSRs 1635 are a subset of control registers 1655.
One or more instruction pointer register(s) 1630 store an instruction pointer value. Debug registers 1650 control and allow for the monitoring of a processor or core's debugging operations.
Memory (mem) management registers 1665 specify the locations of data structures used in protected mode memory management. These registers may include a global descriptor table register (GDTR), interrupt descriptor table register (IDTR), task register, and a local descriptor table register (LDTR) register.
Alternative examples may use wider or narrower registers. Additionally, alternative examples may use more, less, or different register files and registers. The register architecture 1600 may, for example, be used in register file/memory ‘ISAB08, or physical register file(s) circuitry 1458.
An instruction set architecture (ISA) may include one or more instruction formats. A given instruction format may define various fields (e.g., number of bits, location of bits) to specify, among other things, the operation to be performed (e.g., opcode) and the operand(s) on which that operation is to be performed and/or other data field(s) (e.g., mask). Some instruction formats are further broken down through the definition of instruction templates (or sub-formats). For example, the instruction templates of a given instruction format may be defined to have different subsets of the instruction format's fields (the included fields are typically in the same order, but at least some have different bit positions because there are less fields included) and/or defined to have a given field interpreted differently. Thus, each instruction of an ISA is expressed using a given instruction format (and, if defined, in a given one of the instruction templates of that instruction format) and includes fields for specifying the operation and the operands. For example, an example ADD instruction has a specific opcode and an instruction format that includes an opcode field to specify that opcode and operand fields to select operands (sourcel/destination and source2); and an occurrence of this ADD instruction in an instruction stream will have specific contents in the operand fields that select specific operands. In addition, though the description below is made in the context of x86 ISA, it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to apply the teachings of the present disclosure in another ISA.
Examples of the instruction(s) described herein may be embodied in different formats. Additionally, example systems, architectures, and pipelines are detailed below. Examples of the instruction(s) may be executed on such systems, architectures, and pipelines, but are not limited to those detailed.
The prefix(es) field(s) 1701, when used, modifies an instruction. In some examples, one or more prefixes are used to repeat string instructions (e.g., 0×F0, 0×F2, 0×F3, etc.), to provide section overrides (e.g., 0×2E, 0×36, 0×3E, 0×26, 0×64, 0×65, 0×2E, 0×3E, etc.), to perform bus lock operations, and/or to change operand (e.g., 0×66) and address sizes (e.g., 0×67). Certain instructions require a mandatory prefix (e.g., 0×66, 0×F2, 0×F3, etc.). Certain of these prefixes may be considered “legacy” prefixes. Other prefixes, one or more examples of which are detailed herein, indicate, and/or provide further capability, such as specifying particular registers, etc. The other prefixes typically follow the “legacy” prefixes.
The opcode field 1703 is used to at least partially define the operation to be performed upon a decoding of the instruction. In some examples, a primary opcode encoded in the opcode field 1703 is one, two, or three bytes in length. In other examples, a primary opcode can be a different length. An additional 3-bit opcode field is sometimes encoded in another field.
The addressing information field 1705 is used to address one or more operands of the instruction, such as a location in memory or one or more registers.
The content of the MOD field 1842 distinguishes between memory access and non-memory access modes. In some examples, when the MOD field 1842 has a binary value of 11 (11b), a register-direct addressing mode is utilized, and otherwise a register-indirect addressing mode is used.
The register field 1844 may encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand or may encode an opcode extension and not be used to encode any instruction operand. The content of register field 1844, directly or through address generation, specifies the locations of a source or destination operand (either in a register or in memory). In some examples, the register field 1844 is supplemented with an additional bit from a prefix (e.g., prefix 1701) to allow for greater addressing.
The R/M field 1846 may be used to encode an instruction operand that references a memory address or may be used to encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand. Note the R/M field 1846 may be combined with the MOD field 1842 to dictate an addressing mode in some examples.
The SIB byte 1804 includes a scale field 1852, an index field 1854, and a base field 1856 to be used in the generation of an address. The scale field 1852 indicates a scaling factor. The index field 1854 specifies an index register to use. In some examples, the index field 1854 is supplemented with an additional bit from a prefix (e.g., prefix 1701) to allow for greater addressing. The base field 1856 specifies a base register to use. In some examples, the base field 1856 is supplemented with an additional bit from a prefix (e.g., prefix 1701) to allow for greater addressing. In practice, the content of the scale field 1852 allows for the scaling of the content of the index field 1854 for memory address generation (e.g., for address generation that uses 2scale*index+base).
Some addressing forms utilize a displacement value to generate a memory address. For example, a memory address may be generated according to 2scale*index+base+displacement, index*scale+displacement, r/m+displacement, instruction pointer (RIP/EIP)+displacement, register+displacement, etc. The displacement may be a 1-byte, 2-byte, 4-byte, etc. value. In some examples, the displacement field 1707 provides this value. Additionally, in some examples, a displacement factor usage is encoded in the MOD field of the addressing information field 1705 that indicates a compressed displacement scheme for which a displacement value is calculated and stored in the displacement field 1707.
In some examples, the immediate value field 1709 specifies an immediate value for the instruction. An immediate value may be encoded as a 1-byte value, a 2-byte value, a 4-byte value, etc.
Instructions using the first prefix 1701(A) may specify up to three registers using 3-bit fields depending on the format: 1) using the reg field 1844 and the R/M field 1846 of the MOD R/M byte 1802; 2) using the MOD R/M byte 1802 with the SIB byte 1804 including using the reg field 1844 and the base field 1856 and index field 1854; or 3) using the register field of an opcode.
In the first prefix 1701(A), bit positions 7:4 are set as 0100. Bit position 3 (W) can be used to determine the operand size but may not solely determine operand width. As such, when W=0, the operand size is determined by a code segment descriptor (CS.D) and when W=1, the operand size is 64-bit.
Note that the addition of another bit allows for 16 (24) registers to be addressed, whereas the MOD R/M reg field 1844 and MOD R/M R/M field 1846 alone can each only address 8 registers.
In the first prefix 1701(A), bit position 2 (R) may be an extension of the MOD R/M reg field 1844 and may be used to modify the MOD R/M reg field 1844 when that field encodes a general-purpose register, a 64-bit packed data register (e.g., a SSE register), or a control or debug register. R is ignored when MOD R/M byte 1802 specifies other registers or defines an extended opcode.
Bit position 1 (X) may modify the SIB byte index field 1854.
Bit position 0 (B) may modify the base in the MOD R/M R/M field 1846 or the SIB byte base field 1856; or it may modify the opcode register field used for accessing general purpose registers (e.g., general purpose registers 1625).
In some examples, the second prefix 1701(B) comes in two forms—a two-byte form and a three-byte form. The two-byte second prefix 1701(B) is used mainly for 128-bit, scalar, and some 256-bit instructions; while the three-byte second prefix 1701(B) provides a compact replacement of the first prefix 1701(A) and 3-byte opcode instructions.
Instructions that use this prefix may use the MOD R/M R/M field 1846 to encode the instruction operand that references a memory address or encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand.
Instructions that use this prefix may use the MOD R/M reg field 1844 to encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand, or to be treated as an opcode extension and not used to encode any instruction operand.
For instruction syntax that support four operands, vvvv, the MOD R/M R/M field 1846 and the MOD R/M reg field 1844 encode three of the four operands. Bits[7:4] of the immediate value field 1709 are then used to encode the third source register operand.
Bit[7] of byte 22117 is used similar to W of the first prefix 1701(A) including helping to determine promotable operand sizes. Bit[2] is used to dictate the length (L) of the vector (where a value of 0 is a scalar or 128-bit vector and a value of 1 is a 256-bit vector). Bits[1:0] provide opcode extensionality equivalent to some legacy prefixes (e.g., 00=no prefix, 01=66H, 10=F3H, and 11=F2H). Bits[6:3], shown as vvvv, may be used to: 1) encode the first source register operand, specified in inverted (1s complement) form and valid for instructions with 2 or more source operands; 2) encode the destination register operand, specified in 1s complement form for certain vector shifts; or 3) not encode any operand, the field is reserved and should contain a certain value, such as 1111b.
Instructions that use this prefix may use the MOD R/M R/M field 1846 to encode the instruction operand that references a memory address or encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand.
Instructions that use this prefix may use the MOD R/M reg field 1844 to encode either the destination register operand or a source register operand, or to be treated as an opcode extension and not used to encode any instruction operand.
For instruction syntax that support four operands, vvvv, the MOD R/M R/M field 1846, and the MOD RIM reg field 1844 encode three of the four operands. Bits[7:4] of the immediate value field 1709 are then used to encode the third source register operand.
The third prefix 1701(C) can encode 32 vector registers (e.g., 128-bit, 256-bit, and 512-bit registers) in 64-bit mode. In some examples, instructions that utilize a writemask/opmask (see discussion of registers in a previous figure, such as
The third prefix 1701(C) may encode functionality that is specific to instruction classes (e.g., a packed instruction with “load+op” semantic can support embedded broadcast functionality, a floating-point instruction with rounding semantic can support static rounding functionality, a floating-point instruction with non-rounding arithmetic semantic can support “suppress all exceptions” functionality, etc.).
The first byte of the third prefix 1701(C) is a format field 2211 that has a value, in one example, of 62H. Subsequent bytes are referred to as payload bytes 2215-2219 and collectively form a 24-bit value of P[23:0] providing specific capability in the form of one or more fields (detailed herein).
In some examples, P[1:0] of payload byte 2219 are identical to the low two mm bits. P[3:2] are reserved in some examples. Bit P[4] (R′) allows access to the high 16 vector register set when combined with P[7] and the MOD R/M reg field 1844. P[6] can also provide access to a high 16 vector register when SIB-type addressing is not needed. P[7:5] consist of R, X, and B which are operand specifier modifier bits for vector register, general purpose register, memory addressing and allow access to the next set of 8 registers beyond the low 8 registers when combined with the MOD R/M register field 1844 and MOD R/M R/M field 1846. P[9:8] provide opcode extensionality equivalent to some legacy prefixes (e.g., 00=no prefix, 01=66H, 10=F3H, and 11=F2H). P[10] in some examples is a fixed value of 1. P[14:11], shown as vvvv, may be used to: 1) encode the first source register operand, specified in inverted (1s complement) form and valid for instructions with 2 or more source operands; 2) encode the destination register operand, specified in 1s complement form for certain vector shifts; or 3) not encode any operand, the field is reserved and should contain a certain value, such as 1111b.
P[15] is similar to W of the first prefix 1701(A) and second prefix 1711(B) and may serve as an opcode extension bit or operand size promotion.
P[18:16] specify the index of a register in the opmask (writemask) registers (e.g., writemask/predicate registers 1615). In one example, the specific value aaa=000 has a special behavior implying no opmask is used for the particular instruction (this may be implemented in a variety of ways including the use of a opmask hardwired to all ones or hardware that bypasses the masking hardware). When merging, vector masks allow any set of elements in the destination to be protected from updates during the execution of any operation (specified by the base operation and the augmentation operation); in other one example, preserving the old value of each element of the destination where the corresponding mask bit has a 0. In contrast, when zeroing vector masks allow any set of elements in the destination to be zeroed during the execution of any operation (specified by the base operation and the augmentation operation); in one example, an element of the destination is set to 0 when the corresponding mask bit has a 0 value. A subset of this functionality is the ability to control the vector length of the operation being performed (that is, the span of elements being modified, from the first to the last one); however, it is not necessary that the elements that are modified be consecutive. Thus, the opmask field allows for partial vector operations, including loads, stores, arithmetic, logical, etc. While examples are described in which the opmask field's content selects one of a number of opmask registers that contains the opmask to be used (and thus the opmask field's content indirectly identifies that masking to be performed), alternative examples instead or additional allow the mask write field's content to directly specify the masking to be performed.
P[19] can be combined with P[14:11] to encode a second source vector register in a non-destructive source syntax which can access an upper 16 vector registers using P[19]. P[20] encodes multiple functionalities, which differs across different classes of instructions and can affect the meaning of the vector length/rounding control specifier field (P[22:21]). P[23] indicates support for merging-writemasking (e.g., when set to 0) or support for zeroing and merging-writemasking (e.g., when set to 1).
Example examples of encoding of registers in instructions using the third prefix 1701(C) are detailed in the following tables.
Program code may be applied to input information to perform the functions described herein and generate output information. The output information may be applied to one or more output devices, in known fashion. For purposes of this application, a processing system includes any system that has a processor, such as, for example, a digital signal processor (DSP), a microcontroller, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a microprocessor, or any combination thereof.
The program code may be implemented in a high-level procedural or object-oriented programming language to communicate with a processing system. The program code may also be implemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. In fact, the mechanisms described herein are not limited in scope to any particular programming language. In any case, the language may be a compiled or interpreted language.
Examples of the mechanisms disclosed herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or a combination of such implementation approaches. Examples may be implemented as computer programs or program code executing on programmable systems comprising at least one processor, a storage system (including volatile and non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device.
One or more aspects of at least one example may be implemented by representative instructions stored on a machine-readable medium which represents various logic within the processor, which when read by a machine causes the machine to fabricate logic to perform the techniques described herein. Such representations, known as “intellectual property (IP) cores” may be stored on a tangible, machine readable medium and supplied to various customers or manufacturing facilities to load into the fabrication machines that make the logic or processor.
Such machine-readable storage media may include, without limitation, non-transitory, tangible arrangements of articles manufactured or formed by a machine or device, including storage media such as hard disks, any other type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, compact disk read-only memories (CD-ROMs), compact disk rewritables (CD-RWs), and magneto-optical disks, semiconductor devices such as read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) such as dynamic random access memories (DRAMs), static random access memories (SRAMs), erasable programmable read-only memories (EPROMs), flash memories, electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROMs), phase change memory (PCM), magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions.
Accordingly, examples also include non-transitory, tangible machine-readable media containing instructions or containing design data, such as Hardware Description Language (HDL), which defines structures, circuits, apparatuses, processors and/or system features described herein. Such examples may also be referred to as program products.
In some cases, an instruction converter may be used to convert an instruction from a source instruction set architecture to a target instruction set architecture. For example, the instruction converter may translate (e.g., using static binary translation, dynamic binary translation including dynamic compilation), morph, emulate, or otherwise convert an instruction to one or more other instructions to be processed by the core. The instruction converter may be implemented in software, hardware, firmware, or a combination thereof. The instruction converter may be on processor, off processor, or part on and part off processor.
References to “one example,” “an example,” etc., indicate that the example described may include a particular feature, structure, or characteristic, but every example may not necessarily include the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover, such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same example. Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic is described in connection with an example, it is submitted that it is within the knowledge of one skilled in the art to affect such feature, structure, or characteristic in connection with other examples whether or not explicitly described.
Moreover, in the various examples described above, unless specifically noted otherwise, disjunctive language such as the phrase “at least one of A, B, or C” or “A, B, and/or C” is intended to be understood to mean either A, B, or C, or any combination thereof (i.e. A and B, A and C, B and C, and A, B and C).
The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereunto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the disclosure as set forth in the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202241044441 | Aug 2022 | IN | national |
