Patent ID: 9342307
Filing Date: 2016-05-17
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A method for counting mappings of logical registers to physical registers in a processor for instruction executions by a mapper unit of the processor, comprising: responsive to receiving an instruction to execute on at least one logical register, identifying, by a processor, a particular physical register from among a plurality of physical registers mapped to the at least one logical register from among a plurality of logical registers for execution of the instruction; comparing, by the processor, the particular physical register against a plurality of active tracking counters currently assigned to a selection of the plurality of physical registers from among a plurality of counters, wherein a number of the plurality of counters is less than a number of the plurality of physical registers; responsive to not detecting any counter assigned to the particular physical register from among the plurality of active tracking counters, assigning, by the processor, a particular counter from among the plurality of counters currently in a counter free pool to the particular physical register to count a number of mappings of logical registers from among the plurality of logical registers to the particular physical register by assigning an identifier for the particular physical register to the particular counter, setting a valid state for the particular counter to valid, and setting the count for the particular counter to a number of a selection of the plurality of logical registers mapped to the physical register; responsive to detecting the particular counter already assigned to the particular physical register from among the plurality of active tracking counters, incrementing, by the processor, the count of the particular counter; and responsive to the counted number of mappings of logical registers to the particular physical register decremented to less than a minimum value, returning, by the processor, the particular counter to the counter free pool.