Method and apparatus for performing logical compare operations

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10416997-B2
Application number	US-201816164736-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 18, 2018
Priority date	Sep 21, 2006
Publication date	Sep 17, 2019
Grant date	Sep 17, 2019

Abstract

A method and apparatus for including in processor instructions for performing logical-comparison and branch support operations on packed or unpacked data. In one embodiment, instruction decode logic decodes instructions for an execution unit to operate on packed data elements including logical comparisons. A register file including 128-bit packed data registers stores packed single-precision floating point (SPFP) and packed integer data elements. The logical comparisons may include comparison of SPFP data elements and comparison of integer data elements and setting at least one bit to indicate the results. Based on these comparisons, branch support actions are taken. Such branch support actions may include setting the at least one bit, which in turn may be utilized by a branching unit in response to a branch instruction. Alternatively, the branch support actions may include branching to an indicated target code location.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A processor comprising:
a decoder to decode a first sequence of instructions, the first sequence of instructions including a fused instruction to perform both a compare operation and a jump operation conditioned on a result of the compare operation;
a first source register to store a first source value;
a second source register to store a second source value; and
execution circuitry to perform the compare and jump operations, the execution circuitry to compare the first source value to the second source value and to jump to a target address of a second sequence of instructions in response to a first result of the comparison.

2. The processor of claim 1 wherein the execution circuitry is to continue to execute the first sequence of instructions in response to a second result of the comparison.

3. The processor of claim 2 wherein the first result comprises an indication that the first and second source values are equal and the second result comprises an indication that the first and second source values are not equal.

4. The processor of claim 1 wherein the fused instruction includes an indication of the target address.

5. The processor of claim 1 wherein the first source value and the second source value are 32-bit values.

6. The processor of claim 1 wherein one or more instructions in the first or second sequence comprise single instruction multiple data (SIMD) instructions, and wherein the execution circuitry comprises:
vector execution circuitry to execute the SIMD instructions; and
a vector register file comprising a set of 512-bit vector registers to be used to store operands of the SIMD instructions.

7. The processor of claim 6 further comprising:
a set of vector mask registers to store mask values generated by an instruction in the first or second sequence of instructions.

8. The processor of claim 6 wherein the execution circuitry further comprises scalar execution circuitry to execute one or more scalar instructions in the first or second sequence of instructions, the scalar execution circuitry including a set of scalar registers to store scalar operands.

9. The processor of claim 1 further comprising:
a plurality of status registers to maintain data related to an execution state of the processor.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Kapoor Rajiv
• Zohar Ronen
• Buxton Mark J
• Sperber Zeev
• Gottlieb Koby

Classifications

• G06F9/3877

  using a secondary processor, e.g. coprocessor (peripheral processor G06F13/12) · CPC title

• G06F9/3016

  Decoding the operand specifier, e.g. specifier format · CPC title

• G06F7/026

  Magnitude comparison, i.e. determining the relative order of operands based on their numerical value, e.g. window comparator · CPC title

• G06F9/30021 Primary

  Compare instructions, e.g. Greater-Than, Equal-To, MINMAX · CPC title

• G06F9/30094

  Condition code generation, e.g. Carry, Zero flag · CPC title