Programmable hardware event monitoring method
First Claim
1. A method for monitoring hardware events in a computer system, comprising the steps of:
- implementing a hardware event monitor of control registers and having programmable generic fields which can be internally or externally programmed for monitoring events ranging from simple operations to complex event sequences andusing programmed criteria incorporated into said hardware event monitor to monitor events within said computer system by initiating successive compares of programmed criteria with processing events, andusing said hardware event monitor to trigger external actions upon successful detection of compares indicating that all criteria programmed into the hardware event monitor have been achieved, and whereinall aspects of the event monitor are replicated to form two or more Compare Stations, each of which can operate independently as disjoint functional units or can be chained together to act as a single entity; and
each of said Control Stations can monitor all fields, of any and all pipelines or other resources of said computer system, each Compare Station providing an independent compare output signal governed by a unique set of Control Registers for that Compare Station, and using a unique or shared event counter, whereby said compare output signals of each station can be used to trigger the same external actions and can be used to trigger different external actions and can be further combined using AND/OR/Invert (AOI) logic to create "super compare" functions such as, but not limited to;
space="preserve" listing-type="equation">(F1x*F2x)+(F1y*F2y)
space="preserve" listing-type="equation">(F1x+F2x)*(F1y+F2y).
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Abstract
A system for monitoring hardware events in a computer system implements a hardware event monitor of control registers and has programmable generic fields which can be internally or externally programmed for monitoring events ranging from simple operations to complex event sequences. Using programmed criteria incorporated into the hardware event monitor to events within said computer system are monitored by initiating successive compares of programmed criteria with processing events. The hardware event monitor can trigger external actions upon successful detection of compares indicating that all criteria programmed into the hardware event monitor have been achieved. None of the bits within the Control Registers are mutually exclusive which allows multiple scenarios to be programmed. The hardware event monitor and system trace controls act as a single unified entity with remote programming of said hardware event monitor and trace controls over a UBUS to permit capturing and logging problem debugging and instrumentation data for use in remote system administration, technical support assistance, field and customer engineering applications, and performance analysis, and hardware error injection for recovery and diagnostic testing, and enabling dither to break resource deadlocks.
267 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for monitoring hardware events in a computer system, comprising the steps of:
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implementing a hardware event monitor of control registers and having programmable generic fields which can be internally or externally programmed for monitoring events ranging from simple operations to complex event sequences and using programmed criteria incorporated into said hardware event monitor to monitor events within said computer system by initiating successive compares of programmed criteria with processing events, and using said hardware event monitor to trigger external actions upon successful detection of compares indicating that all criteria programmed into the hardware event monitor have been achieved, and wherein all aspects of the event monitor are replicated to form two or more Compare Stations, each of which can operate independently as disjoint functional units or can be chained together to act as a single entity; and
each of said Control Stations can monitor all fields, of any and all pipelines or other resources of said computer system, each Compare Station providing an independent compare output signal governed by a unique set of Control Registers for that Compare Station, and using a unique or shared event counter, whereby said compare output signals of each station can be used to trigger the same external actions and can be used to trigger different external actions and can be further combined using AND/OR/Invert (AOI) logic to create "super compare" functions such as, but not limited to;
space="preserve" listing-type="equation">(F1x*F2x)+(F1y*F2y)
space="preserve" listing-type="equation">(F1x+F2x)*(F1y+F2y). - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification