Patent ID: 7689815

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing a first debug instruction; providing a field in the first debug instruction to indicate a group number; providing a plurality of debug control register fields, wherein the group number associates a first one of the plurality of debug control register fields to the first debug instruction, wherein if the first one of the plurality of debug control register fields has a first value, the first debug instruction is to be executed as the first debug instruction, and wherein if the first one of the plurality of debug control register fields has a second value, the first debug instruction is to be executed as a no-operation (NOP) instruction; and providing a second debug instruction, wherein the second debug instruction has no field to indicate the group number, wherein a second one of the plurality of debug control register fields is associated to the second debug instruction, wherein if the second one of the plurality of debug control register fields has the first value, the second debug instruction is to be executed as the second debug instruction, and wherein if the second one of the plurality of debug control register fields has the second value, the second debug instruction is to be executed as the NOP operation instruction.