Patent ID: 8516224
Filing Date: 2013-08-20
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage device comprising computer-executable instructions stored therein, the computer-executable instructions comprising: instructions to receive a stall signal and a multi-cycle request signal from an execution unit if the execution unit associated with an instruction pipeline detects a multi-cycle atom of a very long instruction word (VLIW) molecule in a stage of the instruction pipeline; instructions to stall pipelining operation of the instruction pipeline, to read an instruction address from a corresponding stage of an address pipeline, and to store the instruction address in response to the stall signal; instructions to determine whether to permit execution of the multi-cycle atom in response to the multi-cycle request signal, wherein an exception and an interrupt take precedence over execution of the multi-cycle atom; and instructions to update control information associated with the multi-cycle atom to indicate a multi-cycle operation and to generate an interrupt mask signal to indicate that interrupts should not disrupt execution of the multi-cycle atom if execution of the multi-cycle atom is permitted.