METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING A PLURALITY OF MULTIPLICATION OPERATIONS

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates generally to the field of computer processors. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for performing a plurality of multiplication operations.

2. Description of the Related Art

An instruction set, or instruction set architecture (ISA), is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, register architecture, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external input and output (I/O). It should be noted that the term “instruction” generally refers herein to macro-instructions—that is instructions that are provided to the processor for execution—as opposed to micro-instructions or micro-ops—that is the result of a processor's decoder decoding macro-instructions.

The ISA is distinguished from the microarchitecture, which is the set of processor design techniques used to implement the instruction set. Processors with different microarchitectures can share a common instruction set. For example, Intel® Pentium 4 processors, Intel® Core™ processors, and processors from Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. of Sunnyvale Calif. implement nearly identical versions of the x86 instruction set (with some extensions that have been added with newer versions), but have different internal designs. For example, the same register architecture of the ISA may be implemented in different ways in different microarchitectures using well-known techniques, including dedicated physical registers, one or more dynamically allocated physical registers using a register renaming mechanism (e.g., the use of a Register Alias Table (RAT), a Reorder Buffer (ROB) and a retirement register file). Unless otherwise specified, the phrases register architecture, register file, and register are used herein to refer to that which is visible to the software/programmer and the manner in which instructions specify registers. Where a distinction is required, the adjective “logical,” “architectural,” or “software visible” will be used to indicate registers/files in the register architecture, while different adjectives will be used to designate registers in a given microarchitecture (e.g., physical register, reorder buffer, retirement register, register pool).

An instruction set includes one or more instruction formats. A given instruction format defines various fields (number of bits, location of bits) to specify, among other things, the operation to be performed and the operand(s) on which that operation is to be performed. Some instruction formats are further broken down though the definition of instruction templates (or subformats). 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. A given instruction is expressed using a given instruction format (and, if defined, in a given one of the instruction templates of that instruction format) and specifies the operation and the operands. An instruction stream is a specific sequence of instructions, where each instruction in the sequence is an occurrence of an instruction in an instruction format (and, if defined, a given one of the instruction templates of that instruction format).

Scientific, financial, auto-vectorized general purpose, RMS (recognition, mining, and synthesis), and visual and multimedia applications (e.g., 2D/3D graphics, image processing, video compression/decompression, voice recognition algorithms and audio manipulation) often require the same operation to be performed on a large number of data items (referred to as “data parallelism”). Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) refers to a type of instruction that causes a processor to perform an operation on multiple data items. SIMD technology is especially suited to processors that can logically divide the bits in a register into a number of fixed-sized data elements, each of which represents a separate value. For example, the bits in a 64-bit register may be specified as a source operand to be operated on as four separate 16-bit data elements, each of which represents a separate 16-bit value. This type of data is referred to as packed data type or vector data type, and operands of this data type are referred to as packed data operands or vector operands. In other words, a packed data item or vector refers to a sequence of packed data elements; and a packed data operand or a vector operand is a source or destination operand of a SIMD instruction (also known as a packed data instruction or a vector instruction).

By way of example, one type of SIMD instruction specifies a single vector operation to be performed on two source vector operands in a vertical fashion to generate a destination vector operand (also referred to as a result vector operand) of the same size, with the same number of data elements, and in the same data element order. The data elements in the source vector operands are referred to as source data elements, while the data elements in the destination vector operand are referred to a destination or result data elements. These source vector operands are of the same size and contain data elements of the same width, and thus they contain the same number of data elements. The source data elements in the same bit positions in the two source vector operands form pairs of data elements (also referred to as corresponding data elements). The operation specified by that SIMD instruction is performed separately on each of these pairs of source data elements to generate a matching number of result data elements, and thus each pair of source data elements has a corresponding result data element. Since the operation is vertical and since the result vector operand is the same size, has the same number of data elements, and the result data elements are stored in the same data element order as the source vector operands, the result data elements are in the same bit positions of the result vector operand as their corresponding pair of source data elements in the source vector operands. In addition to this exemplary type of SIMD instruction, there are a variety of other types of SIMD instructions (e.g., that has only one or has more than two source vector operands; that operate in a horizontal fashion; that generates a result vector operand that is of a different size, that has a different size data elements, and/or that has a different data element order). It should be understood that the term destination vector operand (or destination operand) is defined as the direct result of performing the operation specified by an instruction, including the storage of that destination operand at a location (be it a register or at a memory address specified by that instruction) so that it may be accessed as a source operand by another instruction (by specification of that same location by the another instruction).

The SIMD technology, such as that employed by the Intel® Core™ processors having an instruction set including x86, MMX™, Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE), SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, and SSE4.2 instructions, has enabled a significant improvement in application performance (Core™ and MMX™ are registered trademarks or trademarks of Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif.). An additional set of SIMD extensions, referred to the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) and using the VEX coding scheme, has also been designed and published.

One instruction of particular relevance to the present application is the multiply instruction. Several algorithms in high performance computing platforms multiply several computed values. In general, each multiply operation requires the execution of one instruction.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A better understanding of the present invention can be obtained from the following detailed description in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary embodiment of an in-order fetch, decode, retire core and an exemplary register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution architecture core to be included in a processor according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a single core processor and a multicore processor with integrated memory controller and graphics according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of a system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of a second system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a third system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of a system on a chip (SoC) in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram contrasting the use of a software instruction converter to convert binary instructions in a source instruction set to binary instructions in a target instruction set according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 8 illustrates one embodiment of a processor architecture on which embodiments of the invention may be employed;

FIG. 9A illustrates one embodiment of an architecture for executing a plurality of multiplication operations;

FIG. 9B illustrates another embodiment of an architecture for executing a plurality of multiplication operations;

FIG. 10 illustrates one embodiment of a method for executing a plurality of multiplication operations;

FIGS. 11
a-b are block diagrams illustrating a generic vector friendly instruction format and instruction templates thereof according to embodiments of the invention;

FIG. 12
a-d illustrate a block diagrams of an exemplary specific vector friendly instruction format according to embodiments of the invention; and

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of a register architecture according to one embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments of the invention described below. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the embodiments of the invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form to avoid obscuring the underlying principles of the embodiments of the invention.

Exemplary Processor Architectures and Data Types

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary in-order fetch, decode, retire pipeline and an exemplary register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution pipeline according to embodiments of the invention. FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating both an exemplary embodiment of an in-order fetch, decode, retire core and an exemplary register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution architecture core to be included in a processor according to embodiments of the invention. The solid lined boxes in FIGS. 1A-B illustrate the in-order portions of the pipeline and core, while the optional addition of the dashed lined boxes illustrates the register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution pipeline and core.

In FIG. 1A, a processor pipeline 100 includes a fetch stage 102, a length decode stage 104, a decode stage 106, an allocation stage 108, a renaming stage 110, a scheduling (also known as a dispatch or issue) stage 112, a register read/memory read stage 114, an execute stage 116, a write back/memory write stage 118, an exception handling stage 122, and a commit stage 124.

FIG. 1B shows processor core 190 including a front end unit 130 coupled to an execution engine unit 150, and both are coupled to a memory unit 170. The core 190 may be a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) core, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) core, a very long instruction word (VLIW) core, or a hybrid or alternative core type. As yet another option, the core 190 may be a special-purpose core, such as, for example, a network or communication core, compression engine, coprocessor core, general purpose computing graphics processing unit (GPGPU) core, graphics core, or the like.

The front end unit 130 includes a branch prediction unit 132 coupled to an instruction cache unit 134, which is coupled to an instruction translation lookaside buffer (TLB) 136, which is coupled to an instruction fetch unit 138, which is coupled to a decode unit 140. The decode unit 140 (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 unit 140 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 embodiment, the core 190 includes a microcode ROM or other medium that stores microcode for certain macroinstructions (e.g., in decode unit 140 or otherwise within the front end unit 130). The decode unit 140 is coupled to a rename/allocator unit 152 in the execution engine unit 150.

The execution engine unit 150 includes the rename/allocator unit 152 coupled to a retirement unit 154 and a set of one or more scheduler unit(s) 156. The scheduler unit(s) 156 represents any number of different schedulers, including reservations stations, central instruction window, etc. The scheduler unit(s) 156 is coupled to the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158. Each of the physical register file(s) units 158 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 embodiment, the physical register file(s) unit 158 comprises a vector registers unit, a write mask registers unit, and a scalar registers unit. These register units may provide architectural vector registers, vector mask registers, and general purpose registers. The physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 is overlapped by the retirement unit 154 to illustrate various ways in which register renaming and out-of-order execution may be implemented (e.g., using a reorder buffer(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 154 and the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 are coupled to the execution cluster(s) 160. The execution cluster(s) 160 includes a set of one or more execution units 162 and a set of one or more memory access units 164. The execution units 162 may perform various operations (e.g., shifts, addition, subtraction, multiplication) and on various types of data (e.g., scalar floating point, packed integer, packed floating point, vector integer, vector floating point). While some embodiments may include a number of execution units dedicated to specific functions or sets of functions, other embodiments may include only one execution unit or multiple execution units that all perform all functions. The scheduler unit(s) 156, physical register file(s) unit(s) 158, and execution cluster(s) 160 are shown as being possibly plural because certain embodiments 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 unit, physical register file(s) unit, and/or execution cluster—and in the case of a separate memory access pipeline, certain embodiments are implemented in which only the execution cluster of this pipeline has the memory access unit(s) 164). 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.

The set of memory access units 164 is coupled to the memory unit 170, which includes a data TLB unit 172 coupled to a data cache unit 174 coupled to a level 2 (L2) cache unit 176. In one exemplary embodiment, the memory access units 164 may include a load unit, a store address unit, and a store data unit, each of which is coupled to the data TLB unit 172 in the memory unit 170. The instruction cache unit 134 is further coupled to a level 2 (L2) cache unit 176 in the memory unit 170. The L2 cache unit 176 is coupled to one or more other levels of cache and eventually to a main memory.

By way of example, the exemplary register renaming, out-of-order issue/execution core architecture may implement the pipeline 100 as follows: 1) the instruction fetch 138 performs the fetch and length decoding stages 102 and 104; 2) the decode unit 140 performs the decode stage 106; 3) the rename/allocator unit 152 performs the allocation stage 108 and renaming stage 110; 4) the scheduler unit(s) 156 performs the schedule stage 112; 5) the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 and the memory unit 170 perform the register read/memory read stage 114; the execution cluster 160 perform the execute stage 116; 6) the memory unit 170 and the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 perform the write back/memory write stage 118; 7) various units may be involved in the exception handling stage 122; and 8) the retirement unit 154 and the physical register file(s) unit(s) 158 perform the commit stage 124.

The core 190 may support one or more instructions sets (e.g., the x86 instruction set (with some extensions that have been added with newer versions); the MIPS instruction set of MIPS Technologies of Sunnyvale, Calif.; the ARM instruction set (with optional additional extensions such as NEON) of ARM Holdings of Sunnyvale, Calif.), including the instruction(s) described herein. In one embodiment, the core 190 includes logic to support a packed data instruction set extension (e.g., AVX1, AVX2, and/or some form of the generic vector friendly instruction format (U=0 and/or U=1), described below), thereby allowing the operations used by many multimedia applications to be performed using packed data.

It should be understood that the core may support multithreading (executing two or more parallel sets of operations or threads), and may do so in a variety of ways including time sliced multithreading, simultaneous multithreading (where a single physical core provides a logical core for each of the threads that physical core is simultaneously multithreading), or a combination thereof (e.g., time sliced fetching and decoding and simultaneous multithreading thereafter such as in the Intel® Hyperthreading technology).

While register renaming is described in the context of out-of-order execution, it should be understood that register renaming may be used in an in-order architecture. While the illustrated embodiment of the processor also includes separate instruction and data cache units 134/174 and a shared L2 cache unit 176, alternative embodiments may have a single internal cache for both instructions and data, such as, for example, a Level 1 (L1) internal cache, or multiple levels of internal cache. In some embodiments, the system may include a combination of an internal cache and an external cache that is external to the core and/or the processor. Alternatively, all of the cache may be external to the core and/or the processor.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a processor 200 that may have more than one core, may have an integrated memory controller, and may have integrated graphics according to embodiments of the invention. The solid lined boxes in FIG. 2 illustrate a processor 200 with a single core 202A, a system agent 210, a set of one or more bus controller units 216, while the optional addition of the dashed lined boxes illustrates an alternative processor 200 with multiple cores 202A-N, a set of one or more integrated memory controller unit(s) 214 in the system agent unit 210, and special purpose logic 208.

Thus, different implementations of the processor 200 may include: 1) a CPU with the special purpose logic 208 being integrated graphics and/or scientific (throughput) logic (which may include one or more cores), and the cores 202A-N being one or more general purpose cores (e.g., general purpose in-order cores, general purpose out-of-order cores, a combination of the two); 2) a coprocessor with the cores 202A-N being a large number of special purpose cores intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput); and 3) a coprocessor with the cores 202A-N being a large number of general purpose in-order cores. Thus, the processor 200 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 200 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, BiCMOS, CMOS, or NMOS.

The memory hierarchy includes one or more levels of cache within the cores, a set or one or more shared cache units 206, and external memory (not shown) coupled to the set of integrated memory controller units 214. The set of shared cache units 206 may include one or more mid-level caches, such as level 2 (L2), level 3 (L3), level 4 (L4), or other levels of cache, a last level cache (LLC), and/or combinations thereof. While in one embodiment a ring based interconnect unit 212 interconnects the integrated graphics logic 208, the set of shared cache units 206, and the system agent unit 210/integrated memory controller unit(s) 214, alternative embodiments may use any number of well-known techniques for interconnecting such units. In one embodiment, coherency is maintained between one or more cache units 206 and cores 202-A-N.

In some embodiments, one or more of the cores 202A-N are capable of multi-threading. The system agent 210 includes those components coordinating and operating cores 202A-N. The system agent unit 210 may include for example a power control unit (PCU) and a display unit. The PCU may be or include logic and components needed for regulating the power state of the cores 202A-N and the integrated graphics logic 208. The display unit is for driving one or more externally connected displays.

The cores 202A-N may be homogenous or heterogeneous in terms of architecture instruction set; that is, two or more of the cores 202A-N may be capable of execution the same instruction set, while others may be capable of executing only a subset of that instruction set or a different instruction set. In one embodiment, the cores 202A-N are heterogeneous and include both the “small” cores and “big” cores described below.

FIGS. 3-6 are block diagrams of exemplary computer architectures. Other system designs and configurations known in the arts for laptops, desktops, handheld PCs, personal digital assistants, engineering workstations, servers, network devices, network hubs, switches, 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 huge variety of systems or electronic devices capable of incorporating a processor and/or other execution logic as disclosed herein are generally suitable.

Referring now to FIG. 3, shown is a block diagram of a system 300 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The system 300 may include one or more processors 310, 315, which are coupled to a controller hub 320. In one embodiment the controller hub 320 includes a graphics memory controller hub (GMCH) 390 and an Input/Output Hub (IOH) 350 (which may be on separate chips); the GMCH 390 includes memory and graphics controllers to which are coupled memory 340 and a coprocessor 345; the IOH 350 is couples input/output (I/O) devices 360 to the GMCH 390. Alternatively, one or both of the memory and graphics controllers are integrated within the processor (as described herein), the memory 340 and the coprocessor 345 are coupled directly to the processor 310, and the controller hub 320 in a single chip with the IOH 350.

The optional nature of additional processors 315 is denoted in FIG. 3 with broken lines. Each processor 310, 315 may include one or more of the processing cores described herein and may be some version of the processor 200.

The memory 340 may be, for example, dynamic random access memory (DRAM), phase change memory (PCM), or a combination of the two. For at least one embodiment, the controller hub 320 communicates with the processor(s) 310, 315 via a multi-drop bus, such as a frontside bus (FSB), point-to-point interface such as QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), or similar connection 395.

In one embodiment, the coprocessor 345 is a special-purpose processor, such as, for example, a high-throughput MIC processor, a network or communication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, GPGPU, embedded processor, or the like. In one embodiment, controller hub 320 may include an integrated graphics accelerator.

There can be a variety of differences between the physical resources 310, 315 in terms of a spectrum of metrics of merit including architectural, microarchitectural, thermal, power consumption characteristics, and the like.

In one embodiment, the processor 310 executes instructions that control data processing operations of a general type. Embedded within the instructions may be coprocessor instructions. The processor 310 recognizes these coprocessor instructions as being of a type that should be executed by the attached coprocessor 345. Accordingly, the processor 310 issues these coprocessor instructions (or control signals representing coprocessor instructions) on a coprocessor bus or other interconnect, to coprocessor 345. Coprocessor(s) 345 accept and execute the received coprocessor instructions.

Referring now to FIG. 4, shown is a block diagram of a first more specific exemplary system 400 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, multiprocessor system 400 is a point-to-point interconnect system, and includes a first processor 470 and a second processor 480 coupled via a point-to-point interconnect 450. Each of processors 470 and 480 may be some version of the processor 200. In one embodiment of the invention, processors 470 and 480 are respectively processors 310 and 315, while coprocessor 438 is coprocessor 345. In another embodiment, processors 470 and 480 are respectively processor 310 coprocessor 345.

Processors 470 and 480 are shown including integrated memory controller (IMC) units 472 and 482, respectively. Processor 470 also includes as part of its bus controller units point-to-point (P-P) interfaces 476 and 478; similarly, second processor 480 includes P-P interfaces 486 and 488. Processors 470, 480 may exchange information via a point-to-point (P-P) interface 450 using P-P interface circuits 478, 488. As shown in FIG. 4, IMCs 472 and 482 couple the processors to respective memories, namely a memory 432 and a memory 434, which may be portions of main memory locally attached to the respective processors.

Processors 470, 480 may each exchange information with a chipset 490 via individual P-P interfaces 452, 454 using point to point interface circuits 476, 494, 486, 498. Chipset 490 may optionally exchange information with the coprocessor 438 via a high-performance interface 439. In one embodiment, the coprocessor 438 is a special-purpose processor, such as, for example, a high-throughput MIC processor, a network or communication processor, compression engine, graphics processor, GPGPU, embedded processor, or the like.

A shared cache (not shown) may be included in either processor or outside of both processors, yet connected with the processors via 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.

Chipset 490 may be coupled to a first bus 416 via an interface 496. In one embodiment, first bus 416 may be a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, or a bus such as a PCI Express bus or another third generation I/O interconnect bus, although the scope of the present invention is not so limited.

As shown in FIG. 4, various I/O devices 414 may be coupled to first bus 416, along with a bus bridge 418 which couples first bus 416 to a second bus 420. In one embodiment, one or more additional processor(s) 415, such as coprocessors, high-throughput MIC processors, GPGPU's, accelerators (such as, e.g., graphics accelerators or digital signal processing (DSP) units), field programmable gate arrays, or any other processor, are coupled to first bus 416. In one embodiment, second bus 420 may be a low pin count (LPC) bus. Various devices may be coupled to a second bus 420 including, for example, a keyboard and/or mouse 422, communication devices 427 and a storage unit 428 such as a disk drive or other mass storage device which may include instructions/code and data 430, in one embodiment. Further, an audio I/O 424 may be coupled to the second bus 420. Note that other architectures are possible. For example, instead of the point-to-point architecture of FIG. 4, a system may implement a multi-drop bus or other such architecture.

Referring now to FIG. 5, shown is a block diagram of a second more specific exemplary system 500 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Like elements in FIGS. 4 and 5 bear like reference numerals, and certain aspects of FIG. 4 have been omitted from FIG. 5 in order to avoid obscuring other aspects of FIG. 5.

FIG. 5 illustrates that the processors 470, 480 may include integrated memory and I/O control logic (“CL”) 472 and 482, respectively. Thus, the CL 472, 482 include integrated memory controller units and include I/O control logic. FIG. 5 illustrates that not only are the memories 432, 434 coupled to the CL 472, 482, but also that I/O devices 514 are also coupled to the control logic 472, 482. Legacy I/O devices 515 are coupled to the chipset 490.

Referring now to FIG. 6, shown is a block diagram of a SoC 600 in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. Similar elements in FIG. 2 bear like reference numerals. Also, dashed lined boxes are optional features on more advanced SoCs. In FIG. 6, an interconnect unit(s) 602 is coupled to: an application processor 610 which includes a set of one or more cores 202A-N and shared cache unit(s) 206; a system agent unit 210; a bus controller unit(s) 216; an integrated memory controller unit(s) 214; a set or one or more coprocessors 620 which may include integrated graphics logic, an image processor, an audio processor, and a video processor; an static random access memory (SRAM) unit 630; a direct memory access (DMA) unit 632; and a display unit 640 for coupling to one or more external displays. In one embodiment, the coprocessor(s) 620 include a special-purpose processor, such as, for example, a network or communication processor, compression engine, GPGPU, a high-throughput MIC processor, embedded processor, or the like.

Embodiments of the mechanisms disclosed herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or a combination of such implementation approaches. Embodiments of the invention 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.

Program code, such as code 430 illustrated in FIG. 4, may be applied to input instructions 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), or a microprocessor.

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.

One or more aspects of at least one embodiment 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 “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 actually 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 rewritable's (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, embodiments of the invention 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 embodiments 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 to a target instruction set. 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.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram contrasting the use of a software instruction converter to convert binary instructions in a source instruction set to binary instructions in a target instruction set according to embodiments of the invention. In the illustrated embodiment, the instruction converter is a software instruction converter, although alternatively the instruction converter may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware, or various combinations thereof. FIG. 7 shows a program in a high level language 702 may be compiled using an x86 compiler 704 to generate x86 binary code 706 that may be natively executed by a processor with at least one x86 instruction set core 716. The processor with at least one x86 instruction set core 716 represents any processor that can perform substantially the same functions as an Intel processor with at least one x86 instruction set core by compatibly executing or otherwise processing (1) a substantial portion of the instruction set of the Intel x86 instruction set core or (2) object code versions of applications or other software targeted to run on an Intel processor with at least one x86 instruction set core, in order to achieve substantially the same result as an Intel processor with at least one x86 instruction set core. The x86 compiler 704 represents a compiler that is operable to generate x86 binary code 706 (e.g., object code) that can, with or without additional linkage processing, be executed on the processor with at least one x86 instruction set core 716. Similarly, FIG. 7 shows the program in the high level language 702 may be compiled using an alternative instruction set compiler 708 to generate alternative instruction set binary code 710 that may be natively executed by a processor without at least one x86 instruction set core 714 (e.g., a processor with cores that execute the MIPS instruction set of MIPS Technologies of Sunnyvale, Calif. and/or that execute the ARM instruction set of ARM Holdings of Sunnyvale, Calif.). The instruction converter 712 is used to convert the x86 binary code 706 into code that may be natively executed by the processor without an x86 instruction set core 714. This converted code is not likely to be the same as the alternative instruction set binary code 710 because an instruction converter capable of this is difficult to make; however, the converted code will accomplish the general operation and be made up of instructions from the alternative instruction set. Thus, the instruction converter 712 represents software, firmware, hardware, or a combination thereof that, through emulation, simulation or any other process, allows a processor or other electronic device that does not have an x86 instruction set processor or core to execute the x86 binary code 706.

Method and Apparatus for Performing a Plurality of Multiplication Operations

The embodiments of the invention described below provide architectural extensions for a family of multiplication instructions which perform two multiplies in a single instruction. In one embodiment, the architectural extensions are provided to the Intel Architecture (IA), but the underlying principles of the invention are not limited to any particular ISA.

In existing processor architectures, each multiply instruction performs a single multiply operation. For example, in the Intel Architecture, VMULSS and VMULPS multiply two single-precision floating point values and VMULSD and VMULPD multiply two double-precision floating point values. In contrast, the family of double-multiplication instructions described herein (labeled VMUL3 instructions in one embodiment), perform two multiplies in a single instruction, thereby reducing power and freeing up decoding slots for other instructions. In one embodiment, the two multiplications are performed on three source operands: the second and third source operands may first be multiplied to generate an intermediate result, which is then multiplied by the first source operand.

As illustrated in FIG. 8, an exemplary processor 855 on which embodiments of the invention may be implemented includes an execution unit 840 with VMUL3 execution logic 841 to execute the VMUL3 instructions described herein. A register set 805 provides register storage for operands, control data and other types of data as the execution unit 840 executes the instruction stream.

The details of a single processor core (“Core 0”) are illustrated in FIG. 8 for simplicity. It will be understood, however, that each core shown in FIG. 8 may have the same set of logic as Core 0. As illustrated, each core may include a dedicated Level 1 (L1) cache 812 and Level 2 (L2) cache 811 for caching instructions and data according to a specified cache management policy. The L1 cache 811 includes a separate instruction cache 120 for storing instructions and a separate data cache 121 for storing data. The instructions and data stored within the various processor caches are managed at the granularity of cache lines which may be a fixed size (e.g., 64, 128, 512 Bytes in length). Each core of this exemplary embodiment has an instruction fetch unit 810 for fetching instructions from main memory 800 and/or a shared Level 3 (L3) cache 816; a decode unit 820 for decoding the instructions (e.g., decoding program instructions into micro-operations or “uops”); an execution unit 840 for executing the instructions (e.g., the VMUL3 instructions as described herein); and a writeback unit 850 for retiring the instructions and writing back the results.

The instruction fetch unit 810 includes various well known components including a next instruction pointer 803 for storing the address of the next instruction to be fetched from memory 800 (or one of the caches); an instruction translation look-aside buffer (ITLB) 804 for storing a map of recently used virtual-to-physical instruction addresses to improve the speed of address translation; a branch prediction unit 802 for speculatively predicting instruction branch addresses; and branch target buffers (BTBs) 801 for storing branch addresses and target addresses. Once fetched, instructions are then streamed to the remaining stages of the instruction pipeline including the decode unit 830, the execution unit 840, and the writeback unit 850. The structure and function of each of these units is well understood by those of ordinary skill in the art and will not be described here in detail to avoid obscuring the pertinent aspects of the different embodiments of the invention.

In one embodiment of the invention, the VMUL3 execution logic 841 executes the following family of instructions:

VMUL3SS xmm1{k1}{z}, xmm2, xmm3/mV{er}

VMUL3PS zmm1{k1}{z}, zmm2, zmm3/B32(mV){er}

VMUL3SD xmm1{k1}{z}, xmm2, xmm3/mV{er}

VMUL3PD zmm1{k1}{z}, zmm2, zmm3/B64(mV){er}

where xmm1-3 and zmm1-3 are registers within the register set 805 which store packed or scalar floating point values in either single-precision (32-bit) or double-precision (64-bit) floating point formats.

In particular, in one embodiment VMUL3SS multiplies three scalar, single-precision floating point values stored in xmm1, xmm2, and xmm3. In operation, the second operand (from xmm2) may be multiplied with the third operand (from xmm3) and the results multiplied (with intermediate rounding) with the first operand (from xmm1) and stored into a destination register. In one embodiment, the destination register is the same register used for storing the first operand (e.g., xmm1).

In one embodiment VMUL3PS multiplies three packed, single-precision floating point values stored in zmm1, zmm2, and zmm3. In operation, the second operand (from zmm2) may be multiplied with the third operand (from zmm3) and the results multiplied (with intermediate rounding) with the first operand (from zmm1) and stored into a destination register. In one embodiment, the destination register is the same register used for storing the first operand (e.g., zmm1).

In one embodiment VMUL3SD multiplies three scalar, double-precision floating point values stored in xmm1, xmm2, and xmm3. In operation, the second operand (from xmm2) may be multiplied with the third operand (from xmm3) and the results multiplied (with intermediate rounding) with the first operand (from xmm1) and stored into a destination register. In one embodiment, the destination register is the same register used for storing the first operand (e.g., xmm1).

Finally, in one embodiment, VMUL3PD multiplies three packed, double-precision floating point values stored in zmm1, zmm2, and zmm3. In operation, the second operand (from zmm2) may be multiplied with the third operand (from zmm3) and the results multiplied (with intermediate rounding) with the first operand (from zmm1) and stored into a destination register. In one embodiment, the destination register is the same register used for storing the first operand (e.g., zmm1).

In one embodiment, three immediate bits [2:0] of each of the VMUL3 instructions are used to control the sign of the multiplications. For example, the value of bit 0 of the immediate may control the sign of the first operand (e.g., 1=negative and 0=positive, or vice versa); the value of bit 1 of the immediate may control the sign of the second operand; and the value of bit 2 of the immediate may control the sign of the third operand.

In one embodiment, the first and second operands are read from single instruction multiple data (SIMD) registers while the third operand can be read from a SIMD register or a memory location.

FIG. 9A illustrates additional details associated with one embodiment of the VMUL3 execution logic 841 including an allocator 940 for allocating resources for each VMUL3 uop and a reservation station 902 for scheduling VMUL3 uops to be executed by functional units 912. In operation, following the decode stage 830, in which each VMUL3 instruction is decoded into uops, the instruction decoder 806 transfers the uops to an allocator unit 940 which includes a register alias table (RAT) 941. In an out-of-order pipeline, the allocator unit 940 assigns each incoming uop to a location in a reorder buffer (ROB) 950, thereby mapping the logical destination address of the uop to a corresponding physical destination address in the ROB 950. The RAT 941 maintains this mapping.

The contents of a ROB 950 may ultimately be retired to locations in a real register file (RRF) 951. The RAT 941 may also store a real register file valid bit that indicates whether the value indicated by the logical address is to be found at the physical address in the ROB 950 or in the RRF 951 after retirement. If found in the RRF, the value is considered to be part of the current processor architectural state. Based upon this mapping, the RAT 941 also associates every logical source address to a corresponding location in the ROB 950 or the RRF 951.

Each incoming uop is also assigned and written into an entry in the reservation station (RS) 902 by the allocator 940. The reservation station 902 assembles the VMUL3 uops awaiting execution by the functional unit 912. In the instant case, two Fused Multiply and Add (FMA) functional units, FMA0910 and FMA1911, perform multiplication operations as described below to execute the VMUL3 instructions. When necessary, results may be written back to the RS 902 over a writeback bus.

In one embodiment, reservation station entries are logically subdivided into groups to reduce the number of read and write ports required for reading and writing the entries, respectively. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 9A two reservation station groups, RS0900 and RS1901, schedule execution of the VMUL3 uops by the FMA0900 and FMA1901 functional units over ports 0 and 1, respectively.

In one embodiment, any of the VMUL3 instructions may be executed as a single uop through the pipeline. In particular, the uop is first executed by FMA0900 (via RS0900) which performs the first multiplication of the second and third operands (e.g., from xmm2/xmm3 or zmm2/zmm3 as discussed above) to produce an intermediate result. The uop is delayed within buffer unit 905 and is then executed a second time by FMA1911 (via RS1901) to multiply the intermediate result and the first operand (e.g., from xmm1/zmm1). As previously mentioned, the final result may be stored within xmm1/zmm1. Additionally, as mentioned, the immediate value of the VMUL3 instruction may specify the sign for each of the three source operands. In one embodiment, the second issue of the uop is forced to wait (via buffer 905) exactly the FMA latency (e.g., 5 clock cycles) before re-issuing the instruction.

Various existing data bypasses may be used to provide the intermediate result to the FMA1911 on port 1. In one embodiment, the intermediate result is temporarily stored within the ROB 950 or any other storage location from which it may be read and used by FMA1911. In one embodiment, the writeback bus may be used to provide the intermediate result to RS1901 which then makes the intermediate result available to FMA1911 over port 1. However, the underlying principles of the invention are not limited to any particular manner of providing the intermediate result to FMA1911. Moreover, while a ROB 950 is illustrated in FIG. 9A, it will be appreciated that in some processor implementations (e.g., in-order pipelines), no ROB 950 is used and a different form of storage may be used to store the intermediate result and the final result following execution.

As illustrated in FIG. 9B, two functional units are not required for implementing the underlying principles of the invention. Specifically, in this embodiment the same functional unit—FMA0910—executes the VMUL3 uop two times in succession to generate the final result. That is, FMA0910 executes the first multiplication between the second and third operands, and recirculates the intermediate result and the uop back through itself to perform the second multiplication (which, once completed, is passed through the remainder of the pipeline). While the second iteration of the uop is shown passing through the reservation station 902, in one embodiment, the recirculation is simply performed within the functional unit stage 912 (i.e., directly from FMA0910 to itself using temporary buffer storage within the functional unit stage 921). Moreover, in another implementation, a new dedicated functional unit within the set of functional units 912 performs the VMUL3 instruction independently (i.e., without using a fused multiply and add functional unit).

The embodiment described above provides improved power consumption than using two VMUL instructions, as only one instruction is decoded. In addition, it is guaranteed that the temporal source is read through bypasses, so no data needs to be read from the Register File.

In applications where several elements are multiplied together, the number of multiply instructions can be divided by 2 utilizing the VMUL3 instructions described herein. As an example, for a long loop that can be vectorized where floating point values are multiplied, a VMUL3 may be used to virtually reduce the instruction count by 2.

One embodiment of a method for performing a plurality of multiplication operations is illustrated in FIG. 10. At 1001 a single VMUL3 instruction is fetched from the memory subsystem. As mentioned, the VMUL3 instruction includes first, second, third source operands, a destination operand, and an immediate value. At 1002 the VMUL3 instruction is decoded into uops. As mentioned above, in one embodiment, a single multiply uop may be generated (and executed twice for the two multiplication operations required to complete the VMUL3 instruction).

At 1003, the source operand values are retrieved in preparation for execution by the functional units. This operation may be performed, for example, by the reservation station 902 and/or allocator unit 940.

At 1004, the VMUL3 instruction is executed. In one embodiment, the multiply uop is executed once using the second and third operands to generate an intermediate result. The uop is then executed a second time using the intermediate result and the first operand to generate the final result (i.e., the multiplication of the first, second, and third source operands). As mentioned, the sign of each of the source operands may be provided as a three-bit intermediate value.

At 1005, the result of the VMUL3 instruction is stored in a destination operand location (e.g., a register) from which it may be read for one or more subsequent operations.

Exemplary Instruction Formats

Embodiments of the instruction(s) described herein may be embodied in different formats. Additionally, exemplary systems, architectures, and pipelines are detailed below. Embodiments of the instruction(s) may be executed on such systems, architectures, and pipelines, but are not limited to those detailed.

A vector friendly instruction format is an instruction format that is suited for vector instructions (e.g., there are certain fields specific to vector operations). While embodiments are described in which both vector and scalar operations are supported through the vector friendly instruction format, alternative embodiments use only vector operations the vector friendly instruction format.

FIGS. 11A-11B are block diagrams illustrating a generic vector friendly instruction format and instruction templates thereof according to embodiments of the invention. FIG. 11A is a block diagram illustrating a generic vector friendly instruction format and class A instruction templates thereof according to embodiments of the invention; while FIG. 11B is a block diagram illustrating the generic vector friendly instruction format and class B instruction templates thereof according to embodiments of the invention. Specifically, a generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 for which are defined class A and class B instruction templates, both of which include no memory access 1505 instruction templates and memory access 1520 instruction templates. The term generic in the context of the vector friendly instruction format refers to the instruction format not being tied to any specific instruction set.

While embodiments of the invention will be described in which the vector friendly instruction format supports the following: a 64 byte vector operand length (or size) with 32 bit (4 byte) or 64 bit (8 byte) data element widths (or sizes) (and thus, a 64 byte vector consists of either 16 doubleword-size elements or alternatively, 8 quadword-size elements); a 64 byte vector operand length (or size) with 16 bit (2 byte) or 8 bit (1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); a 32 byte vector operand length (or size) with 32 bit (4 byte), 64 bit (8 byte), 16 bit (2 byte), or 8 bit (1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); and a 16 byte vector operand length (or size) with 32 bit (4 byte), 64 bit (8 byte), 16 bit (2 byte), or 8 bit (1 byte) data element widths (or sizes); alternative embodiments may support more, less and/or different vector operand sizes (e.g., 256 byte vector operands) with more, less, or different data element widths (e.g., 168 bit (16 byte) data element widths).

The class A instruction templates in FIG. 11A include: 1) within the no memory access 1505 instruction templates there is shown a no memory access, full round control type operation 1510 instruction template and a no memory access, data transform type operation 1515 instruction template; and 2) within the memory access 1520 instruction templates there is shown a memory access, temporal 1525 instruction template and a memory access, non-temporal 1530 instruction template. The class B instruction templates in FIG. 11B include: 1) within the no memory access 1505 instruction templates there is shown a no memory access, write mask control, partial round control type operation 1516 instruction template and a no memory access, write mask control, vsize type operation 1517 instruction template; and 2) within the memory access 1520 instruction templates there is shown a memory access, write mask control 1527 instruction template.

The generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 includes the following fields listed below in the order illustrated in FIGS. 11A-11B.

Format field 1540—a specific value (an instruction format identifier value) in this field uniquely identifies the vector friendly instruction format, and thus occurrences of instructions in the vector friendly instruction format in instruction streams. As such, this field is optional in the sense that it is not needed for an instruction set that has only the generic vector friendly instruction format.

Base operation field 1542—its content distinguishes different base operations.

Register index field 1544—its content, directly or through address generation, specifies the locations of the source and destination operands, be they in registers or in memory. These include a sufficient number of bits to select N registers from a P×Q (e.g. 32×516, 16×168, 32×1024, 64×1024) register file. While in one embodiment N may be up to three sources and one destination register, alternative embodiments may support more or less sources and destination registers (e.g., may support up to two sources where one of these sources also acts as the destination, may support up to three sources where one of these sources also acts as the destination, may support up to two sources and one destination).

Modifier field 1546—its content distinguishes occurrences of instructions in the generic vector instruction format that specify memory access from those that do not; that is, between no memory access 1505 instruction templates and memory access 1520 instruction templates. Memory access operations read and/or write to the memory hierarchy (in some cases specifying the source and/or destination addresses using values in registers), while non-memory access operations do not (e.g., the source and destinations are registers). While in one embodiment this field also selects between three different ways to perform memory address calculations, alternative embodiments may support more, less, or different ways to perform memory address calculations.

Augmentation operation field 1550—its content distinguishes which one of a variety of different operations to be performed in addition to the base operation. This field is context specific. In one embodiment of the invention, this field is divided into a class field 1568, an alpha field 1552, and a beta field 1554. The augmentation operation field 1550 allows common groups of operations to be performed in a single instruction rather than 2, 3, or 4 instructions.

Scale field 1560—its content allows for the scaling of the index field's content for memory address generation (e.g., for address generation that uses 2^scale*index+base).

Displacement Field 1562A—its content is used as part of memory address generation (e.g., for address generation that uses 2^scale*index+base+displacement).

Displacement Factor Field 1562B (note that the juxtaposition of displacement field 1562A directly over displacement factor field 1562B indicates one or the other is used)—its content is used as part of address generation; it specifies a displacement factor that is to be scaled by the size of a memory access (N)—where N is the number of bytes in the memory access (e.g., for address generation that uses 2^scale*index+base+scaled displacement). Redundant low-order bits are ignored and hence, the displacement factor field's content is multiplied by the memory operands total size (N) in order to generate the final displacement to be used in calculating an effective address. The value of N is determined by the processor hardware at runtime based on the full opcode field 1574 (described herein) and the data manipulation field 1554C. The displacement field 1562A and the displacement factor field 1562B are optional in the sense that they are not used for the no memory access 1505 instruction templates and/or different embodiments may implement only one or none of the two.

Data element width field 1564—its content distinguishes which one of a number of data element widths is to be used (in some embodiments for all instructions; in other embodiments for only some of the instructions). This field is optional in the sense that it is not needed if only one data element width is supported and/or data element widths are supported using some aspect of the opcodes.

Write mask field 1570—its content controls, on a per data element position basis, whether that data element position in the destination vector operand reflects the result of the base operation and augmentation operation. Class A instruction templates support merging-writemasking, while class B instruction templates support both merging- and zeroing-writemasking. 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 embodiment, 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 embodiment, 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 write mask field 1570 allows for partial vector operations, including loads, stores, arithmetic, logical, etc. While embodiments of the invention are described in which the write mask field's 1570 content selects one of a number of write mask registers that contains the write mask to be used (and thus the write mask field's 1570 content indirectly identifies that masking to be performed), alternative embodiments instead or additional allow the mask write field's 1570 content to directly specify the masking to be performed.

Immediate field 1572—its content allows for the specification of an immediate. This field is optional in the sense that is it not present in an implementation of the generic vector friendly format that does not support immediate and it is not present in instructions that do not use an immediate.

Class field 1568—its content distinguishes between different classes of instructions. With reference to FIGS. 11A-B, the contents of this field select between class A and class B instructions. In FIGS. 11A-B, rounded corner squares are used to indicate a specific value is present in a field (e.g., class A 1568A and class B 1568B for the class field 1568 respectively in FIGS. 11A-B).

Instruction Templates of Class A

In the case of the non-memory access 1505 instruction templates of class A, the alpha field 1552 is interpreted as an RS field 1552A, whose content distinguishes which one of the different augmentation operation types are to be performed (e.g., round 1552A.1 and data transform 1552A.2 are respectively specified for the no memory access, round type operation 1510 and the no memory access, data transform type operation 1515 instruction templates), while the beta field 1554 distinguishes which of the operations of the specified type is to be performed. In the no memory access 1505 instruction templates, the scale field 1560, the displacement field 1562A, and the displacement scale filed 1562B are not present.

No-Memory Access Instruction Templates—Full Round Control Type Operation

In the no memory access full round control type operation 1510 instruction template, the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a round control field 1554A, whose content(s) provide static rounding. While in the described embodiments of the invention the round control field 1554A includes a suppress all floating point exceptions (SAE) field 1556 and a round operation control field 1558, alternative embodiments may support may encode both these concepts into the same field or only have one or the other of these concepts/fields (e.g., may have only the round operation control field 1558).

SAE field 1556—its content distinguishes whether or not to disable the exception event reporting; when the SAE field's 1556 content indicates suppression is enabled, a given instruction does not report any kind of floating-point exception flag and does not raise any floating point exception handler.

Round operation control field 1558—its content distinguishes which one of a group of rounding operations to perform (e.g., Round-up, Round-down, Round-towards-zero and Round-to-nearest). Thus, the round operation control field 1558 allows for the changing of the rounding mode on a per instruction basis. In one embodiment of the invention where a processor includes a control register for specifying rounding modes, the round operation control field's 1550 content overrides that register value.

No Memory Access Instruction Templates: Data Transform Type Operation

In the no memory access data transform type operation 1515 instruction template, the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a data transform field 1554B, whose content distinguishes which one of a number of data transforms is to be performed (e.g., no data transform, swizzle, broadcast).

In the case of a memory access 1520 instruction template of class A, the alpha field 1552 is interpreted as an eviction hint field 1552B, whose content distinguishes which one of the eviction hints is to be used (in FIG. 12A, temporal 1552B.1 and non-temporal 1552B.2 are respectively specified for the memory access, temporal 1525 instruction template and the memory access, non-temporal 1530 instruction template), while the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a data manipulation field 1554C, whose content distinguishes which one of a number of data manipulation operations (also known as primitives) is to be performed (e.g., no manipulation; broadcast; up conversion of a source; and down conversion of a destination). The memory access 1520 instruction templates include the scale field 1560, and optionally the displacement field 1562A or the displacement scale field 1562B.

Vector memory instructions perform vector loads from and vector stores to memory, with conversion support. As with regular vector instructions, vector memory instructions transfer data from/to memory in a data element-wise fashion, with the elements that are actually transferred is dictated by the contents of the vector mask that is selected as the write mask.

Memory Access Instruction Templates—Temporal

Temporal data is data likely to be reused soon enough to benefit from caching. This is, however, a hint, and different processors may implement it in different ways, including ignoring the hint entirely.

Memory Access Instruction Templates—Non-Temporal

Non-temporal data is data unlikely to be reused soon enough to benefit from caching in the 1st-level cache and should be given priority for eviction. This is, however, a hint, and different processors may implement it in different ways, including ignoring the hint entirely.

Instruction Templates of Class B

In the case of the instruction templates of class B, the alpha field 1552 is interpreted as a write mask control (Z) field 1552C, whose content distinguishes whether the write masking controlled by the write mask field 1570 should be a merging or a zeroing.

In the case of the non-memory access 1505 instruction templates of class B, part of the beta field 1554 is interpreted as an RL field 1557A, whose content distinguishes which one of the different augmentation operation types are to be performed (e.g., round 1557A.1 and vector length (VSIZE) 1557A.2 are respectively specified for the no memory access, write mask control, partial round control type operation 1516 instruction template and the no memory access, write mask control, VSIZE type operation 1517 instruction template), while the rest of the beta field 1554 distinguishes which of the operations of the specified type is to be performed. In the no memory access 1505 instruction templates, the scale field 1560, the displacement field 1562A, and the displacement scale filed 1562B are not present.

In the no memory access, write mask control, partial round control type operation 1510 instruction template, the rest of the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a round operation field 1559A and exception event reporting is disabled (a given instruction does not report any kind of floating-point exception flag and does not raise any floating point exception handler).

Round operation control field 1559A—just as round operation control field 1558, its content distinguishes which one of a group of rounding operations to perform (e.g., Round-up, Round-down, Round-towards-zero and Round-to-nearest). Thus, the round operation control field 1559A allows for the changing of the rounding mode on a per instruction basis. In one embodiment of the invention where a processor includes a control register for specifying rounding modes, the round operation control field's 1550 content overrides that register value.

In the no memory access, write mask control, VSIZE type operation 1517 instruction template, the rest of the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a vector length field 1559B, whose content distinguishes which one of a number of data vector lengths is to be performed on (e.g., 168, 256, or 516 byte).

In the case of a memory access 1520 instruction template of class B, part of the beta field 1554 is interpreted as a broadcast field 1557B, whose content distinguishes whether or not the broadcast type data manipulation operation is to be performed, while the rest of the beta field 1554 is interpreted the vector length field 1559B. The memory access 1520 instruction templates include the scale field 1560, and optionally the displacement field 1562A or the displacement scale field 1562B.

With regard to the generic vector friendly instruction format 1500, a full opcode field 1574 is shown including the format field 1540, the base operation field 1542, and the data element width field 1564. While one embodiment is shown where the full opcode field 1574 includes all of these fields, the full opcode field 1574 includes less than all of these fields in embodiments that do not support all of them. The full opcode field 1574 provides the operation code (opcode).

The augmentation operation field 1550, the data element width field 1564, and the write mask field 1570 allow these features to be specified on a per instruction basis in the generic vector friendly instruction format.

The combination of write mask field and data element width field create typed instructions in that they allow the mask to be applied based on different data element widths.

The various instruction templates found within class A and class B are beneficial in different situations. In some embodiments of the invention, different processors or different cores within a processor may support only class A, only class B, or both classes. For instance, a high performance general purpose out-of-order core intended for general-purpose computing may support only class B, a core intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific (throughput) computing may support only class A, and a core intended for both may support both (of course, a core that has some mix of templates and instructions from both classes but not all templates and instructions from both classes is within the purview of the invention). Also, a single processor may include multiple cores, all of which support the same class or in which different cores support different class. For instance, in a processor with separate graphics and general purpose cores, one of the graphics cores intended primarily for graphics and/or scientific computing may support only class A, while one or more of the general purpose cores may be high performance general purpose cores with out of order execution and register renaming intended for general-purpose computing that support only class B. Another processor that does not have a separate graphics core, may include one more general purpose in-order or out-of-order cores that support both class A and class B. Of course, features from one class may also be implement in the other class in different embodiments of the invention. Programs written in a high level language would be put (e.g., just in time compiled or statically compiled) into an variety of different executable forms, including: 1) a form having only instructions of the class(es) supported by the target processor for execution; or 2) a form having alternative routines written using different combinations of the instructions of all classes and having control flow code that selects the routines to execute based on the instructions supported by the processor which is currently executing the code.

FIG. 12A-D is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary specific vector friendly instruction format according to embodiments of the invention. FIG. 12A-D shows a specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 that is specific in the sense that it specifies the location, size, interpretation, and order of the fields, as well as values for some of those fields. The specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 may be used to extend the x86 instruction set, and thus some of the fields are similar or the same as those used in the existing x86 instruction set and extension thereof (e.g., AVX). This format remains consistent with the prefix encoding field, real opcode byte field, MOD R/M field, SIB field, displacement field, and immediate fields of the existing x86 instruction set with extensions. The fields from FIG. 11 into which the fields from FIG. 12 map are illustrated.

It should be understood that, although embodiments of the invention are described with reference to the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 in the context of the generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 for illustrative purposes, the invention is not limited to the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 except where claimed. For example, the generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 contemplates a variety of possible sizes for the various fields, while the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 is shown as having fields of specific sizes. By way of specific example, while the data element width field 1564 is illustrated as a one bit field in the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600, the invention is not so limited (that is, the generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 contemplates other sizes of the data element width field 1564).

The generic vector friendly instruction format 1500 includes the following fields listed below in the order illustrated in FIG. 12A.

EVEX Prefix (Bytes 0-3) 1602—is encoded in a four-byte form.

Format Field 1640 (EVEX Byte 0, bits [7:0])—the first byte (EVEX Byte 0) is the format field 1640 and it contains 0x62 (the unique value used for distinguishing the vector friendly instruction format in one embodiment of the invention).

The second-fourth bytes (EVEX Bytes 1-3) include a number of bit fields providing specific capability.

REX field 1605 (EVEX Byte 1, bits [7-5])—consists of a EVEX.R bit field (EVEX Byte 1, bit [7]—R), EVEX.X bit field (EVEX byte 1, bit [6]—X), and 1557BEX byte 1, bit[5]—B). The EVEX.R, EVEX.X, and EVEX.B bit fields provide the same functionality as the corresponding VEX bit fields, and are encoded using 1s complement form, i.e. ZMM0 is encoded as 1611B, ZMM15 is encoded as 0000B. Other fields of the instructions encode the lower three bits of the register indexes as is known in the art (rrr, xxx, and bbb), so that Rrrr, Xxxx, and Bbbb may be formed by adding EVEX.R, EVEX.X, and EVEX.B.

REX′ field 1605—this is the first part of the REX′ field 1510 and is the EVEX.R′ bit field (EVEX Byte 1, bit [4]—R′) that is used to encode either the upper 16 or lower 16 of the extended 32 register set. In one embodiment of the invention, this bit, along with others as indicated below, is stored in bit inverted format to distinguish (in the well-known x86 32-bit mode) from the BOUND instruction, whose real opcode byte is 62, but does not accept in the MOD R/M field (described below) the value of 11 in the MOD field; alternative embodiments of the invention do not store this and the other indicated bits below in the inverted format. A value of 1 is used to encode the lower 16 registers. In other words, R′Rrrr is formed by combining EVEX.R′, EVEX.R, and the other RRR from other fields.

Opcode map field 1615 (EVEX byte 1, bits [3:0]—mmmm)—its content encodes an implied leading opcode byte (0F, 0F 38, or 0F 3).

Data element width field 1664 (EVEX byte 2, bit [7]—W)—is represented by the notation EVEX.W. EVEX.W is used to define the granularity (size) of the datatype (either 32-bit data elements or 64-bit data elements).

EVEX.vvvv 1620 (EVEX Byte 2, bits [6:3]—vvvv)—the role of EVEX.vvvv may include the following: 1) EVEX.vvvv encodes the first source register operand, specified in inverted (1s complement) form and is valid for instructions with 2 or more source operands; 2) EVEX.vvvv encodes the destination register operand, specified in 1s complement form for certain vector shifts; or 3) EVEX.vvvv does not encode any operand, the field is reserved. Thus, EVEX.vvvv field 1620 encodes the 4 low-order bits of the first source register specifier stored in inverted (1s complement) form. Depending on the instruction, an extra different EVEX bit field is used to extend the specifier size to 32 registers.

EVEX.01668 Class field (EVEX byte 2, bit [2]—U)—If EVEX.U=0, it indicates class A or EVEX.U0; if EVEX.U=1, it indicates class B or EVEX.U1.

Prefix encoding field 1625 (EVEX byte 2, bits [1:0]—pp)—provides additional bits for the base operation field. In addition to providing support for the legacy SSE instructions in the EVEX prefix format, this also has the benefit of compacting the SIMD prefix (rather than requiring a byte to express the SIMD prefix, the EVEX prefix requires only 2 bits). In one embodiment, to support legacy SSE instructions that use a SIMD prefix (66H, F2H, F3H) in both the legacy format and in the EVEX prefix format, these legacy SIMD prefixes are encoded into the SIMD prefix encoding field; and at runtime are expanded into the legacy SIMD prefix prior to being provided to the decoder's PLA (so the PLA can execute both the legacy and EVEX format of these legacy instructions without modification). Although newer instructions could use the EVEX prefix encoding field's content directly as an opcode extension, certain embodiments expand in a similar fashion for consistency but allow for different meanings to be specified by these legacy SIMD prefixes. An alternative embodiment may redesign the PLA to support the 2 bit SIMD prefix encodings, and thus not require the expansion.

Alpha field 1652 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]—EH; also known as EVEX.EH, EVEX.rs, EVEX.RL, EVEX.write mask control, and EVEX.N; also illustrated with a)—as previously described, this field is context specific.

Beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]—SSS, also known as EVEX.s_2-0, EVEX.r_2-0, EVEX.rr1, EVEX.LL0, EVEX.LLB; also illustrated with βββ)—as previously described, this field is context specific.

REX′ field 1610—this is the remainder of the REX′ field and is the EVEX.V′ bit field (EVEX Byte 3, bit [3]—V′) that may be used to encode either the upper 16 or lower 16 of the extended 32 register set. This bit is stored in bit inverted format. A value of 1 is used to encode the lower 16 registers. In other words, V′VVVV is formed by combining EVEX.V′, EVEX.vvvv.

Write mask field 1670 (EVEX byte 3, bits [2:0]—kkk)—its content specifies the index of a register in the write mask registers as previously described. In one embodiment of the invention, the specific value EVEX.kkk=000 has a special behavior implying no write mask is used for the particular instruction (this may be implemented in a variety of ways including the use of a write mask hardwired to all ones or hardware that bypasses the masking hardware).

Real Opcode Field 1630 (Byte 4) is also known as the opcode byte. Part of the opcode is specified in this field.

MOD R/M Field 1640 (Byte 5) includes MOD field 1642, Reg field 1644, and R/M field 1646. As previously described, the MOD field's 1642 content distinguishes between memory access and non-memory access operations. The role of Reg field 1644 can be summarized to two situations: encoding either the destination register operand or a source register operand, or be treated as an opcode extension and not used to encode any instruction operand. The role of R/M field 1646 may include the following: encoding the instruction operand that references a memory address, or encoding either the destination register operand or a source register operand.

Scale, Index, Base (SIB) Byte (Byte 6)—As previously described, the scale field's 1650 content is used for memory address generation. SIB.xxx 1654 and SIB.bbb 1656—the contents of these fields have been previously referred to with regard to the register indexes Xxxx and Bbbb.

Displacement field 1662A (Bytes 7-10)—when MOD field 1642 contains 10, bytes 7-10 are the displacement field 1662A, and it works the same as the legacy 32-bit displacement (disp32) and works at byte granularity.

Displacement factor field 1662B (Byte 7)—when MOD field 1642 contains 01, byte 7 is the displacement factor field 1662B. The location of this field is that same as that of the legacy x86 instruction set 8-bit displacement (disp8), which works at byte granularity. Since disp8 is sign extended, it can only address between −168 and 167 bytes offsets; in terms of 64 byte cache lines, disp8 uses 8 bits that can be set to only four really useful values −168, −64, 0, and 64; since a greater range is often needed, disp32 is used; however, disp32 requires 4 bytes. In contrast to disp8 and disp32, the displacement factor field 1662B is a reinterpretation of disp8; when using displacement factor field 1662B, the actual displacement is determined by the content of the displacement factor field multiplied by the size of the memory operand access (N). This type of displacement is referred to as disp8*N. This reduces the average instruction length (a single byte of used for the displacement but with a much greater range). Such compressed displacement is based on the assumption that the effective displacement is multiple of the granularity of the memory access, and hence, the redundant low-order bits of the address offset do not need to be encoded. In other words, the displacement factor field 1662B substitutes the legacy x86 instruction set 8-bit displacement. Thus, the displacement factor field 1662B is encoded the same way as an x86 instruction set 8-bit displacement (so no changes in the ModRM/SIB encoding rules) with the only exception that disp8 is overloaded to disp8*N. In other words, there are no changes in the encoding rules or encoding lengths but only in the interpretation of the displacement value by hardware (which needs to scale the displacement by the size of the memory operand to obtain a byte-wise address offset). Immediate field 1672 operates as previously described.

Full Opcode Field

FIG. 12B is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 that make up the full opcode field 1674 according to one embodiment of the invention. Specifically, the full opcode field 1674 includes the format field 1640, the base operation field 1642, and the data element width (W) field 1664. The base operation field 1642 includes the prefix encoding field 1625, the opcode map field 1615, and the real opcode field 1630.

FIG. 12C is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 that make up the register index field 1644 according to one embodiment of the invention. Specifically, the register index field 1644 includes the REX field 1605, the REX′ field 1610, the MODR/M.reg field 1644, the MODR/M.r/m field 1646, the VVVV field 1620, xxx field 1654, and the bbb field 1656.

Augmentation Operation Field

FIG. 12D is a block diagram illustrating the fields of the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 that make up the augmentation operation field 1650 according to one embodiment of the invention. When the class (U) field 1668 contains 0, it signifies EVEX.U0 (class A 1668A); when it contains 1, it signifies EVEX.U1 (class B 1668B). When U=0 and the MOD field 1642 contains 11 (signifying a no memory access operation), the alpha field 1652 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]—EH) is interpreted as the rs field 1652A. When the rs field 1652A contains a 1 (round 1652A.1), the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]—SSS) is interpreted as the round control field 1654A. The round control field 1654A includes a one bit SAE field 1656 and a two bit round operation field 1658. When the rs field 1652A contains a 0 (data transform 1652A.2), the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]—SSS) is interpreted as a three bit data transform field 1654B. When U=0 and the MOD field 1642 contains 00, 01, or 10 (signifying a memory access operation), the alpha field 1652 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]—EH) is interpreted as the eviction hint (EH) field 1652B and the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]—SSS) is interpreted as a three bit data manipulation field 1654C.

When U=1, the alpha field 1652 (EVEX byte 3, bit [7]—EH) is interpreted as the write mask control (Z) field 1652C. When U=1 and the MOD field 1642 contains 11 (signifying a no memory access operation), part of the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bit [4]—S₀) is interpreted as the RL field 1657A; when it contains a 1 (round 1657A.1) the rest of the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]—S_2-1) is interpreted as the round operation field 1659A, while when the RL field 1657A contains a 0 (VSIZE 1657.A2) the rest of the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]—S_2-1) is interpreted as the vector length field 1659B (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]—L_1-0). When U=1 and the MOD field 1642 contains 00, 01, or 10 (signifying a memory access operation), the beta field 1654 (EVEX byte 3, bits [6:4]—SSS) is interpreted as the vector length field 1659B (EVEX byte 3, bit [6-5]—L_1-0) and the broadcast field 1657B (EVEX byte 3, bit [4]—B).

FIG. 13 is a block diagram of a register architecture 1700 according to one embodiment of the invention. In the embodiment illustrated, there are 32 vector registers 1710 that are 516 bits wide; these registers are referenced as zmm0 through zmm31. The lower order 256 bits of the lower 16 zmm registers are overlaid on registers ymm0-16. The lower order 168 bits of the lower 16 zmm registers (the lower order 168 bits of the ymm registers) are overlaid on registers xmm0-15. The specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 operates on these overlaid register file as illustrated in the below tables.

Adjustable

Vector Length
Class
Operations
Registers

Instruction
A (FIG. 16A;
1510, 1515,
zmm registers (the

Templates that
U = 0)
1525, 1530
vector length is 64 byte)

do not include

the vector

length field
B (FIG. 16B;
1516
zmm registers (the

1559B
U = 1)

vector length is 64 byte)

Instruction
B (FIG. 16B;
1517, 1527
zmm, ymm, or xmm

Templates that
U = 1)

registers (the vector

do include the

length is 64 byte, 32

vector length

byte, or 16 byte)

field 1559B

depending on the vector

length field 1559B

In other words, the vector length field 1559B selects between a maximum length and one or more other shorter lengths, where each such shorter length is half the length of the preceding length; and instructions templates without the vector length field 1559B operate on the maximum vector length. Further, in one embodiment, the class B instruction templates of the specific vector friendly instruction format 1600 operate on packed or scalar single/double-precision floating point data and packed or scalar integer data. Scalar operations are operations performed on the lowest order data element position in an zmm/ymm/xmm register; the higher order data element positions are either left the same as they were prior to the instruction or zeroed depending on the embodiment.

Write mask registers 1715—in the embodiment illustrated, there are 8 write mask registers (k0 through k7), each 64 bits in size. In an alternate embodiment, the write mask registers 1715 are 16 bits in size. As previously described, in one embodiment of the invention, the vector mask register k0 cannot be used as a write mask; when the encoding that would normally indicate k0 is used for a write mask, it selects a hardwired write mask of 0xFFFF, effectively disabling write masking for that instruction.

General-purpose registers 1725—in the embodiment illustrated, there are sixteen 64-bit general-purpose registers that are used along with the existing x86 addressing modes to address memory operands. These registers are referenced by the names RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX, RBP, RSI, RDI, RSP, and R8 through R15.

Scalar floating point stack register file (x87 stack) 1745, on which is aliased the MMX packed integer flat register file 1750—in the embodiment illustrated, the x87 stack is an eight-element stack used to perform scalar floating-point operations on 32/64/80-bit floating point data using the x87 instruction set extension; while the MMX registers are used 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.

Alternative embodiments of the invention may use wider or narrower registers. Additionally, alternative embodiments of the invention may use more, less, or different register files and registers.

In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made thereto without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.

Embodiments of the invention may include various steps, which have been described above. The steps may be embodied in machine-executable instructions which may be used to cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processor to perform the steps. Alternatively, these steps may be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic for performing the steps, or by any combination of programmed computer components and custom hardware components.

As described herein, instructions may refer to specific configurations of hardware such as application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) configured to perform certain operations or having a predetermined functionality or software instructions stored in memory embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium. Thus, the techniques shown in the Figures can be implemented using code and data stored and executed on one or more electronic devices (e.g., an end station, a network element, etc.). Such electronic devices store and communicate (internally and/or with other electronic devices over a network) code and data using computer machine-readable media, such as non-transitory computer machine-readable storage media (e.g., magnetic disks; optical disks; random access memory; read only memory; flash memory devices; phase-change memory) and transitory computer machine-readable communication media (e.g., electrical, optical, acoustical or other form of propagated signals—such as carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.). In addition, such electronic devices typically include a set of one or more processors coupled to one or more other components, such as one or more storage devices (non-transitory machine-readable storage media), user input/output devices (e.g., a keyboard, a touchscreen, and/or a display), and network connections. The coupling of the set of processors and other components is typically through one or more busses and bridges (also termed as bus controllers). The storage device and signals carrying the network traffic respectively represent one or more machine-readable storage media and machine-readable communication media. Thus, the storage device of a given electronic device typically stores code and/or data for execution on the set of one or more processors of that electronic device. Of course, one or more parts of an embodiment of the invention may be implemented using different combinations of software, firmware, and/or hardware. Throughout this detailed description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. In certain instances, well known structures and functions were not described in elaborate detail in order to avoid obscuring the subject matter of the present invention. Accordingly, the scope and spirit of the invention should be judged in terms of the claims which follow.

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PERFORMING A PLURALITY OF MULTIPLICATION OPERATIONS

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