Processors supporting atomic writes to multiword memory locations and methods

Abstract

A system and method process atomic instructions. A processor system includes a load store unit (LSU), first and second registers, a memory interface, and a main memory. In response to a load link (LL) instruction, the LSU loads first data from memory into the first register and sets an LL bit (LLBIT) to indicate a sequence of atomic instructions is being executed. The LSU further loads second data from memory into the second register in response to a load (LD) instruction. The LSU places a value of the second register into the memory interface in response to a store conditional coupled (SCX) instruction. When the LLBIT is set and in response to a store (SC) instruction, the LSU places a value of the second register into the memory interface and commits the first and second register values in the memory interface into the main memory when the LLBIT is set.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.