Apparatus and method for monitoring conditional instructions

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that when executed cause a method to be performed, the method comprising:

• enabling, via a control circuit, a first counter of a performance monitor unit of a processor to maintain a count of a first conditional instruction event;
• updating the first counter in response to occurrence of the first conditional instruction event during execution of a workload on the processor;
• and
• reading a value of the first counter and storing the value into a memory, the value comprising a count of first events occurring during the execution of the workload.

A processor apparatus comprising:

• front end circuitry to fetch and decode instructions;
• back end circuitry to execute and retire the instructions;
• at least one configuration register to store configuration information;
• performance monitoring circuitry coupled to the front end circuitry and the back end circuitry, the performance monitoring circuitry comprising:
• a plurality of fixed counters to count events of a highest level of a hierarchical performance monitoring organization;
• a plurality of programmable counters, wherein the programmable counters are programmable to count programmable events of one or more levels of the hierarchical performance monitoring organization lower than the highest level, the programmable events including at least one conditional instruction event;
• and
• a control circuit to enable one or more of the plurality of programmable counters, in response to at least one write to the at least one configuration register.