Patent ID: 6243806
Filing Date: 2001-06-05
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A pipeline program execution method involving branching process, comprising:during an execution stage or a memory access stage of executing a first program instruction, determining whether a computation result of the execution stage or a data read out from a memory in the memory access stage has a value belonging to a predetermined set of values;during register write stage of executing the first program instruction, storing in a data holding unit the computation result or the data read out from the memory, and setting a flag corresponding to the data holding unit to indicate whether the data stored therein has a value belonging to the predetermined set of values as determined during the execution or the memory access stage; andduring an instruction decoding stage of executing of a subsequent program instruction which contains a reference to the data holding unit, performing a branching determination by checking the flag corresponding to the data holding unit to determine whether the data stored in the data holding unit has a value belonging to the predetermined set of values without evaluating the data stored in the data holding unit, whereby the speed of the branching determination is increased.