System and method for real-time tracing and profiling of a superscalar processor implementing conditional execution

Abstract

A processor is disclosed including trace and profile logic for gathering and producing data corresponding to events occurring during instruction execution. In one embodiment, the trace and profile logic includes a discontinuity buffer for storing data corresponding to a “discontinuity instruction” subject to grouping with other instructions for simultaneous execution. A “discontinuity instruction” alters, or is executed as a result of an altering of, sequential instruction fetching. In another embodiment, the trace and profile logic includes a serial queue for serializing data corresponding to multiple discontinuity instructions grouped together for simultaneous execution. In another embodiment, the trace and profile logic includes stall filtering logic that asserts an output signal for a time period during which repeated data generated due to a pipeline stall condition are to be ignored. A system is described including the processor, a memory system, an embedded trace module/embedded profile unit (ETM/EPU), and a computer system.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.