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US 7,080,236 B2Granted
Updating stack pointer based on instruction bit indicator without executing an update microinstruction
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsStephan J. Jourdan, Alan B. Kyker, Nicholas G. Samra
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A stack pointer update technique in which the stack pointer is updated without executing micro-operations to add or subtract a stack pointer value. The stack pointer update technique is also described to reset the stack pointer to a predetermined value without executing micro-operations to add or subtract stack a stack pointer value.
Claims33
An apparatus comprising:
- a first unit to execute a first instruction, the first instruction comprising a first micro-operation (uop);
- a second unit to access a value in a memory in response to the first uop being executed by the first unit;
- a third unit to update a pointer to the memory in response to decoding a first bit field within the first instruction without the first uop first being executed.
A system comprising:
- a memory unit to store a first instruction comprising a first micro-operation (uop), the first instruction comprising a bit field to indicate whether the first instruction will change a stack pointer when executed;
- a processor to decode the bit field and update the stack pointer according to the first instruction without the first uop first being executed by the processor.
A method comprising:
- fetching a first instruction, the first instruction comprising a first micro-operation (uop) to access a stack and a bit field;
- decoding the bit field in order to determine whether the first uop is to access the stack;
- changing the stack pointer by a first value corresponding to a size of data to be accessed by the first uop without the first uop first being executed.
A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, which when executed by a machine cause the machine to perform a method comprising:
- decoding a bit field to indicate whether a stack painter is to be updated as a result of executing a first instruction;
- determining an updated stack pointer value without the first instruction first being executed, the determining comprising adding a sum of a stack pointer base value and a stack painter offset value to a value corresponding to a size of data to be accessed by the first instruction.
An apparatus comprising:
- means for decoding a bit field to indicate whether executing a first instruction will change a stack pointer without the first instruction first being executed;
- means for updating a stack pointer offset value in response to decoding the bit field;
- means for determining a sum of a stack pointer base value, the stack pointer offset value, and a value corresponding to a size of data to be accessed by the first instruction;
- means for storing the stack pointer base value and the stack pointer offset value;
- means for resetting the stack pointer comprising a means for reading the stack pointer base value and a means a means for summing the stack pointer base value, stack pointer offset value, and an immediate value provided by a second instruction.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.