Patent ID: 6934830

Claim:
A method for reducing the time required to access registers from a register file within a processor, comprising: receiving an instruction to be executed, wherein the instruction identifies a set of operands to be accessed from the register file, wherein the set of operands includes at least one operand; looking up the set of operands in a register pane, wherein the register pane is smaller and faster than the register file and contains copies of a subset of registers from the register file; and if the lookup is successful, retrieving the set of operands from the register pane to execute the instruction; if the lookup is not successful, retrieving the set of operands from the register file, storing the set of operands into the register pane, and reissuing the instruction to be executed again, so that the re-issued instruction retrieves the set of operands from the register pane, wherein reissuing the instruction to be executed again involves automatically reissuing the instruction unless a confirmation is received that that set of operands was successfully retrieved from the register pane; and writing back results of the instruction to both the register pane and the register file.