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US 7,065,596 B2Granted
Method and apparatus to resolve instruction starvation
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsS. Steven Kulick, Rajee S. Ram, Sin Sim Tan, Rami A. Naqib
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Various methods and apparatuses to deactivating the mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if an agent which issued a first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period.
Claims37
A method, comprising:
- determining whether instruction starvation is occurring based upon detecting whether a first transaction from a first agent has not been accepted by a system resource;
- activating a mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if it is determined that instruction starvation is occurring;
- and
- deactivating the mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if an agent which issued the first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period.
1 more element
A machine-readable medium that provides instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
- determining whether instruction starvation is occurring based upon detecting whether a first transaction from a first agent has not been accepted by a system resource;
- activating a mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if it is determined that instruction starvation is occurring;
- and
- deactivating the mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if an agent which issued the first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period.
1 more element
An apparatus, comprising:
- means for determining whether instruction starvation is occurring based upon detecting whether a first transaction from a first agent has not been accepted by a system resource;
- means for resolving instruction starvation if it is determined that instruction starvation is occurring;
- and
- means for disengaging the mechanism to resolve instruction starvation if an agent which issued the first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period.
1 more element
An apparatus, comprising:
- logic to determine whether instruction starvation is occurring and to resolve the instruction starvation if an agent that issued a first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period, wherein the logic comprises a state machine having an activated state and a deactivated state, the state machine to transition the activated state to resolve a detected instruction starvation condition by accepting exactly one transaction from each agent attempting to use the system resource until all of the agents attempting to use that system resource make forward progress on executing an instruction stream, the state machine to transition to the deactivated state if an agent which issued a first transaction does not reissue the first transaction after receiving a retry response within a predefined time period.
A computer system, comprising:
- a bus;
- a plurality of agents sharing the bus;
- and
- a processor having logic to determine whether instruction starvation is occurring and to resolve the instruction starvation if an agent that issued a first transaction does not reissue the first transaction within a predefined time period, wherein the logic within the processor comprises a state machine having an activated state and a deactivated state, the state machine to transition the activated state to resolve a detected instruction starvation condition by accepting exactly one transaction from each agent attempting to use the system resource until all of the agents attempting to use that system resource make forward progress on executing an instruction stream, the state machine to transition to the deactivated state if the agent which issued the first transaction does not reissue the first transaction after receiving a retry response within the predefined time period.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.