Patent ID: 7685403

Claim:
A method of processor execution of a very long instruction word (VLIW) molecule, the VLIW molecule including a multi-cycle atom whose execution requires a multiple cycle operation, the processor containing a pipeline and a pipeline control unit, the method comprising: notifying the pipeline control unit that a multi-cycle atom has been presented for execution and flushing VLIW instructions related to the multi-cycle atom from the pipeline without flushing at least one VLIW instruction not related to the multi-cycle atom from the pipeline, wherein the multi-cycle atom specifies a multi-cycle operation requiring multiple cycles to be completed by a functional execution unit without interruption and wherein the notifying is performed by at least one of a plurality of functional execution units operable to detect a multi-cycle atom, and responsive thereto, for producing a kill signal; copying an address of the VLIW molecule containing the multi-cycle atom; executing the multi-cycle atom to complete a first part of the multi-cycle operation; marking a copy of the address of the VLIW molecule with an indicium indicative of a second part of the multi-cycle operation; asserting a marked copy of the address of the VLIW molecule into the pipeline to reassert the multi-cycle atom for execution by the functional execution unit; and detecting any marked indicium on the multi-cycle atom when presented for execution and executing the multi-cycle atom in accordance with the respective indicium marked thereon to perform a second part of the multi-cycle operation.