Instruction folding mechanism, method for performing the same and pixel processing system employing the same

Abstract

An instruction folding mechanism, a method for performing the instruction folding mechanism and a pixel processing system employing the instruction folding mechanism are described. The pixel processing system comprises an instruction folding mechanism and a pixel shader. The instruction folding mechanism folds a plurality of first instructions in a first program to generate a second program having at least one second instruction which is a combination of the first instructions. The pixel shader connected to the instruction folding mechanism fetches the second program to decode at least the second instruction having the combination of the first instructions to execute the second program. The instruction folding mechanism comprises an instruction scheduler, a folding rule checker, and an instruction combiner. The instruction scheduler connected to the folding rule checker is used to scan the first instructions according to static positions in order to schedule the first instrictions in the first program. The folding rule checker checks the first instructions according to a folding rule whether the first instructions has data independency. The instruction combiner connected to the folding rule checker can combine the first instructions having the data independency to generate at least the second instruction.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.