Patent ID: 6959379

Claim:
A computer system for executing loops comprising: a program memory holding a sequence of instructions including at least one loop sequence having a set of loop instructions to be executed a predetermined number of times; a prefetch buffer for fetching instructions from the program memory; means for detecting whether all of the loop instructions of the set are in the prefetch buffer and for locking the prefetch buffer against further accesses to the program memory solely in response to detecting that all of the loop instructions are in the prefetch buffer; and means for detecting when the loop sequence has been executed said predetermined number of times and releasing the lock on the prefetch buffer to allow further accesses to the program memory in response to detecting that the loop sequence has been executed said predetermined number of times, comprising a loop count register for holding a value representing said predetermined number and a counter operative to decrement the value in response to each time a last instruction in the loop sequence is reached.