AUTOMATED PROCESSOR GENERATION SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DESIGNING A CONFIGURABLE PROCESSOR

• US 20090177876A1
• Filed: 10/09/2008
• Published: 07/09/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Akilesh Parameswar, Albert Ren-Rui Wang, Christopher Mark Songer, David William Goodwin, Dror E. Maydan, Earl A. Killian, Marines Puig Medina, Nupur Bhattacharyya, Pavlos Konas, Rangarajan Srinivasan, Ricardo E. Gonzalez, Richard Ruddell, Walter David Lichtenstein
• Original Assignee: Akilesh Parameswar, Albert Ren-Rui Wang, Christopher Mark Songer, David William Goodwin, Dror E. Maydan, Earl A. Killian, Marines Puig Medina, Nupur Bhattacharyya, Pavlos Konas, Rangarajan Srinivasan, Ricardo E. Gonzalez, Richard Ruddell, Walter David Lichtenstein
• Inventors: Gonzalez, Ricardo E., WANG, Albert Ren-Rui, Killian, Earl A., Goodwin, David William, Parameswar, Akilesh, Konas, Pavlos, Srinivasan, Rangarajan, Bhattacharyya, Nupur, Medina, Marines Puig, Lichtenstein, Walter David, Songer, Christopher Mark, Ruddell, Richard, Maydan, Dror E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,161,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/30 Circuit design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30145 Instruction analysis, e.g. decoding, instruction word fields
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30167 of immediate specifier, e.g. constants

Abstract

A system for generating processor hardware supports a language for significant extensions to the processor instruction set, where the designer specifies only the semantics of the new instructions and the system generates other logic. The extension language provides for the addition of processor state, including register files, and instructions that operate on that state. The language also provides for new data types to be added to the compiler to represent the state added. It allows separate specification of reference semantics and instruction implementation, and uses this to automate design verification. In addition, the system generates formatted instruction set documentation from the language specification.

Claims

1. A system for designing a configurable processor, the system comprising:

hardware generation means for, based on a configuration specification including a predetermined portion and a user-defined portion, generating a description of a hardware implementation of the processor; and

software generation means for, based on the configuration specification, generating software development tools specific to the hardware implementation;

wherein the user-defined portion of the configuration specification includes a user-defined specification of a processor exception and when a processor instruction raises the exception; and

the hardware generation means includes user-defined exception support generating means for generating hardware supporting that user-defined exception as part of the processor hardware implementation.