Multiplier accumulator circuits
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsJean-Pierre Giacalone, Francois Theodorou, Alain Boyadjian
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A multiply-accumulate (MAC) unit, having a first binary operand X, a second binary operand Y, a third binary operand, Booth recode logic for generating a plurality of partial products from said first and second operands, a Wallace tree adder for reducing the partial products and for selectively arithmetically combining the reduced partial products with said third operand, a final adder for generating a final sum, and a saturation circuitry for selectively rounding or saturating said final sum is provided. A dual MAC unit is also provided.
Claims8
A digital system comprising a processor with a dual multiply-accumulate (MAC) unit, wherein the dual MAC unit comprises:
- a first plurality of selectable inputs associated with a first MAC unit of the dual MAC unit for producing a first output;
- a second plurality of selectable inputs associated with a second MAC unit of the dual MAC unit for producing a second output;
- first accumulator for receiving said first output;
- second accumulator for receiving said second output;
- and
- wherein the second MAC unit is operable to be put in a power down mode while the first MAC unit continues processing of operands.
A method of operating a digital system, wherein the digital system comprises a dual multiply-accumulate (MAC) unit, having a first MAC unit and a second MAC unit, comprising the steps of:
- fetching and decoding an instruction that is a dual-MAC instruction for controlling both the first MAC unit and the second MAC unit;
- enabling a clock signal to the second MAC unit in response to decoding the dual-MAC instruction to enable operation of the second MAC unit;
- performing an operation in first MAC unit and in the second MAC unit in response to the dual-MAC instruction;
- and
- disabling the clock signal to the second MAC unit in response to completion of the operation, whereby power dissipation is reduced by automatically disabling the second MAC unit when not in use.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.