Patent ID: 7124288

Claim:
A programmable unit, comprising: a plurality of command execution units adapted to execute commands and to emit data; a memory device connected to said command execution units and adapted to store data required for execution of the commands and to store the data emitted from said command execution units; a buffer-storage device in the form of a stack, said buffer-storage device: connected to said command execution units and to said memory device, said command execution units being directly connected to said buffer-storage device; adapted to buffer store the data emitted from said command execution units; and said stack configured as a plurality of shadow stack elements, each of said plurality of command execution units being capable of writing to any of said shadow stack elements, as needed; each of said command execution units adapted to write to said buffer-storage device data to be transferred to said memory device; and said buffer-storage device adapted to transfer the data written to said buffer-storage device to said memory device at a later point in time.