Global register protection in a multi-threaded processor

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8996847-B2
Application number	US-201313780115-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2013
Priority date	Aug 30, 2012
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

Global register protection in a multi-threaded processor is described. In an embodiment, global resources within a multi-threaded processor are protected by performing checks, before allowing a thread to write to a global resource, to determine whether the thread has write access to the particular global resource. The check involves accessing one or more local control registers or a global control field within the multi-threaded processor and in an example, a local register associated with each other thread in the multi-threaded processor is accessed and checked to see whether it contains an identifier for the particular global resource. Only if none of the accessed local resources contain such an identifier, is the instruction issued and the thread allowed to write to the global resource. Otherwise, the instruction is blocked and an exception may be raised to alert the program that issued the instruction that the write failed.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for managing global resources within a multi-threaded processor, the multi-threaded processor comprising a plurality of threads and the method comprising:
receiving an instruction from a thread to write to a global resource;
checking, using hardware logic, one or more registers in the multi-threaded processor to determine whether the thread has write access to the global resource; and
in response to determining that the thread has write access to the glob…

Assignees

• Imagination Tech Ltd

Inventors

• Wang Guixin
• Jackson Hugh
• Isherwood Robert Graham

Classifications

• G06F9/4881

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/468

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/30098 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/5011 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F9/3851 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic