Multicycle NOP
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsRichard A. Brown, Ray Simar, Natarajan Seshan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for controlling the execution of a microprocessor to cause it to execute a NOP instruction for a programmable number of sequential cycles. A NOP instruction is provided, that includes a predetermined OP code field identifying the NOP instruction as a programmably multiple NOP instruction. A predetermined count field is provided, representing the number of sequential cycles in which a NOP operation is to be performed by said microprocessor. The NOP instruction OP code field is read, as is the NOP instruction count field. In response thereto, a NOP operation is performed for the number of sequential cycles represented by said NOP instruction count field.
Claims8
A microprocessor having multi-cycle NOP functionality, responsive to a set of instructions retrieved from a storage element, said instructions including a multi-cycle NOP instruction, said multi-cycle NOP instruction including an OP code identifying it as a multi-cycle NOP instruction, and including a first indicator of a number of cycles of NOP for the microprocessor to implement in response to said multi-cycle NOP instruction, comprising:
- first logic for retrieving instructions from storage;
- second logic for decoding retrieved instructions and for dispatching said instructions to execution units, responsive to an enable line;
- and
- third logic for detecting a multi-cycle NOP instruction and, in response, inhibiting said enable line for said number of cycles indicated in said multi-cycle NOP instruction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.