Method for tracking pipeline resources in a superscalar processor

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer usable medium having computer readable code embodied therein for tracking pipeline resources in a processor, the computer program product comprising:
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect storing codes instructions in an instruction cache;
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect fetching selected instructions from the instruction cache;
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect marking the fetched instructions with instruction metadata, wherein the instruction metadata indicates a number of resources required to execute each fetched instruction;
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect issuing marked instructions from the fetch unit;
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect maintaining a count of a number of resources committed to issued instructions using the instruction metadata;
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect determining if the number of resources committed to issued instructions exceeds a preselected maximum;
• and
• computer readable program code devices configured to cause a computer to effect preventing instructions from issuing in response to determining that the number of committed resources exceeds the preselected maximum.