Patent ID: 11900109
Assignee: GRAPHCORE LIMITED
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 13:
14. A computer program comprising a sequence of computer readable instructions stored on non-transitory media, the sequence including a masking instruction which, when executed by an execution unit, causes the execution unit to perform a method comprising:
randomly selecting first values to mask from a source operand of n values and retaining other original values from the source operand to generate a result which includes original values from the source operand and symbols in the respective original locations of the selected first values, wherein the masking instruction includes a probability field defining a probability value for masking values of the source operand;
wherein the randomly selecting the first values includes:
in response to instigation of the masking instruction, obtaining a randomised bit string output comprising m bits from a pseudo random number generator implemented in hardware in the execution unit;
dividing the randomised bit string obtained from the pseudo random number generator into p sequences; and
comparing each of the p sequences with the probability value to generate a weighted probability indicator for selecting the first values to be masked.