Scaleable very long instruction word processor with parallelism matching
First Claim
1. Apparatus for increasing the efficiency of a VLIW processor having functional units for the parallel processing of VLIW instructions embedded in compiled executable code, comprising:
- means for establishing the level of parallelism of said processor;
means for establishing the level of parallelism of said executable code;
means when the level of parallelism of said processor exceeds that of said executable code for inactivating that number of said functional units which brings the level of parallelism of said processor to match that of said executable code; and
,means when the level of parallelism of said processor is less than that of said executable code for sequentially reading out portions of said executable code processable by the existing functional units of said processor whereby the level of parallelism of said processor and said executable code are matched.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system is provided to increase the efficiency of a VLIW, Very Long Insttion Word, processor which matches its level of parallelism, LOP, to the LOP of the executable code before executing the code'"'"'s fixed-length VLIW instructions, so that object-level code compatibility is kept for different processor implementations of the same VLIW architecture required for different applications. Matching is accomplished either by reducing the LOP of the processor via inactivating the processor'"'"'s functional units, or by effectively reducing the LOP of the executable code via the processor executing the sequential portions of each VLIW instruction in the code, with the length of the portions equal to or less than the number of operations that the processor can handle as a VLIW instruction.
116 Citations
11 Claims
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1. Apparatus for increasing the efficiency of a VLIW processor having functional units for the parallel processing of VLIW instructions embedded in compiled executable code, comprising:
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means for establishing the level of parallelism of said processor; means for establishing the level of parallelism of said executable code; means when the level of parallelism of said processor exceeds that of said executable code for inactivating that number of said functional units which brings the level of parallelism of said processor to match that of said executable code; and
,means when the level of parallelism of said processor is less than that of said executable code for sequentially reading out portions of said executable code processable by the existing functional units of said processor whereby the level of parallelism of said processor and said executable code are matched. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. Apparatus for increasing the efficiency of a VLIW processor having functional units for the parallel processing of VLIW instructions embedded in compiled executable code, comprising:
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means for establishing the level of parallelism of said processor; means for establishing the level of parallelism of said executable code; and
,means when the level of parallelism of said processor exceeds that of said executable code for inactivating that number of said functional units which brings the level of parallelism of said processor to match that of said executable code.
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11. Apparatus for increasing the efficiency of a VLIW processor having functional units for the parallel processing of VLIW instructions embedded in compiled executable code, comprising:
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means for establishing the level of parallelism of said processor; means for establishing the level of parallelism of said executable code; and
,means when the level of parallelism of said processor is less than that of said executable code for sequentially reading out portions of said executable code processable by the existing functional units of said processor whereby the level of parallelism of said processor and said executable code are matched.
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Specification