Looping instruction
AssigneeXmos Ltd
InventorsHendrik Lambertus Muller, Andrew Stanford-Jason
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A processor (101) with an instruction set comprising a looping instruction and corresponding method are provided. The looping instruction is defined by a corresponding opcode and comprises a register operand for holding a sequence of subinstructions. The looping instruction causes the processor (101) to: repeatedly execute the looping instruction without incrementing a program counter, each execution of the looping instruction comprising: executing one of the subinstructions in the register operand; and modifying the register operand to contain a different set of subinstructions.
Claims15
A processor configured to execute machine code instructions, each instruction being an instance of a predefined set of instruction types in an instruction set of the processor, wherein the instruction set includes a looping instruction defined by a corresponding opcode and comprising an operand specifying an operand register for holding a sequence of subinstructions, the looping instruction causing the processor to:
- repeatedly execute the looping instruction without incrementing a program counter, each execution of the looping instruction comprising:
- executing one of the subinstructions from the operand register, and
- modifying content of the operand register to contain a different set of subinstructions.
A method of executing a looping instruction, said looping instruction being one of a predefined set of instruction types in an instruction set of a processor, said looping instruction being defined by a corresponding opcode and comprising an operand specifying an operand register for holding a sequence of subinstructions, the method comprising:
- repeatedly executing the looping instruction without incrementing a program counter, each execution of the looping instruction comprising:
- executing one of the subinstructions in the operand register;
- and
- modifying content of the operand register to contain a different set of subinstructions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.