Handling oversize store to load forwarding in a processor

A method of processing data in a processor, comprising:

• detecting an oversize load instruction for oversize data that is larger than a maximum width of a data field in a store queue;
• determining, in response to detecting the oversize load instruction, whether the store queue contains any of the oversize data;
• determining, in response to the store queue containing any of the oversize data, whether a first store queue entry contains all of a first portion of the oversize data;
• obtaining, in response to the first store queue entry containing all of the first portion of the oversize data, the first portion of the oversize data from the first store queue entry by executing a first pass through the load store unit (LSU);
• storing the first portion of the oversize data from the first store queue entry into a gather buffer;
• and
• merging the first portion of the oversize data from the gather buffer with a second portion of the oversize data obtained by executing a second pass through the LSU.

A computer system for processing information, the computer system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• a load store execution unit (LSU) for processing load and store instructions, the LSU comprising (a) a store queue having a plurality of entries for storing data, each store queue entry having a data field for storing data, the data field having a maximum width for storing data, (b) a gather buffer for holding data, and (c) a Load Launch Queue (LLQ) for managing and controlling load instructions in the LSU;
• one or more computer readable non-transitory storage media;
• and
• programming instructions stored on the one or more computer readable non-transitory storage media for execution by the at least one processor, the programming instructions comprising:
• programming instructions to process oversize data larger than the maximum width of the data field of the store queue;
• programming instructions to store the oversize data in at least two consecutive entries in the store queue;
• and
• programming instructions to process an oversize load instruction for the oversize data by executing two passes through the LSU, a first pass through the LSU to store a first half of the oversize data in the gather buffer and a second pass through the LSU to merge the first half of the oversize data from the gather buffer with a second half of the oversize data obtained by the second pass through the LSU.