A method and device for providing a vector stream instruction set architecture extension for a CPU. In one aspect, there is provided a vector stream engine unit comprising: a first fast memory storage for temporarily storing data of vector data streams from a memory for loading into a vector register file; a second fast memory storage for temporarily storing data of the vector data streams from the vector register file for loading into the memory; a prefetcher configured to prefetch data of the vector data streams from the memory into the first fast storage memory, and prefetch data of the vector data streams from the vector register file into the second fast storage memory; and a stream configuration table (SCT) storing stream information for prefetching data from the vector data streams.

An instruction processing device and an instruction processing method are disclosed. The instruction processing device includes: an instruction boundary prediction unit including circuitry configured to acquire an instruction packet of a variable-length instruction set and to add instruction prediction information to a plurality of instruction meta-fields in the instruction packet; and an instruction pipeline structure comprising an instruction fetch unit including an instruction boundary determination unit including circuitry configured to determine instruction boundary information according to the instruction prediction information to obtain one or more instructions in the instruction packet.

Techniques related to executing a plurality of instructions by a processor comprising receiving a first instruction for execution on an instruction execution pipeline, beginning execution of the first instruction, receiving one or more second instructions for execution on the instruction execution pipeline, the one or more second instructions associated with a higher priority task than the first instruction, storing a register state associated with the execution of the first instruction in one or more registers of a capture queue associated with the instruction execution pipeline, copying the register state from the capture queue to a memory, determining that the one or more second instructions have been executed, copying the register state from the memory to the one or more registers of the capture queue, and restoring the register state to the instruction execution pipeline from the capture queue.

A network interface device comprises a programmable interface configured to provide a device interface with at least one bus between the network interface device and a host device. The programmable interface is programmable to support a plurality of different types of a device interface.

A streaming engine employed in a digital data processor specifies a fixed read only data stream defined by plural nested loops. An address generator produces addresses of data elements. A steam head register stores data elements next to be supplied to functional units for use as operands. Stream metadata is stored in response to a stream store instruction. Stored stream metadata is restored to the stream engine in response to a stream restore instruction. An interrupt changes an open stream to a frozen state discarding stored stream data. A return from interrupt changes a frozen stream to an active state.

Various embodiments are disclosed of a multiprocessor system with processing elements optimized for high performance and low power dissipation and an associated method of programming the processing elements. Each processing element may comprise a fetch unit and a plurality of address generator units and a plurality of pipelined datapaths. The fetch unit may be configured to receive a multi-part instruction, wherein the multi-part instruction includes a plurality of fields. First and second address generator units may generate, based on different fields of the multi-part instruction, addresses from which to retrieve first and second data for use by an execution unit for the multi-part instruction or a subsequent multi-part instruction. The execution units may perform operations using a single pipeline or multiple pipelines based on third and fourth fields of the multi-part instruction.

The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for mitigating or eliminating the effectiveness of a side-channel based attack, such as one or more classes of an attack commonly known as Spectre. Novel instruction prefixes, and in certain embodiments one or more corresponding instruction prefix parameters, may be provided to enforce a serialized order of execution for particular instructions without serializing an entire instruction flow, thereby improving performance and mitigation reliability over existing solutions. In addition, improved mitigation of such attacks is provided by randomizing both the execution branch history as well as the source address of each vulnerable indirect branch, thereby eliminating the conditions required for such attacks.

A processing apparatus described herein includes a general-purpose parallel processing engine comprising a systolic array having multiple pipelines, each of the multiple pipelines including multiple pipeline stages, wherein the multiple pipelines include a first pipeline, a second pipeline, and a common input shared between the first pipeline and the second pipeline.

In response to an instruction decoder decoding a range prefetch instruction specifying first and second address-range-specifying parameters and a stride parameter, prefetch circuitry controls, depending on the first and second address-range-specifying parameters and the stride parameter, prefetching of data from a plurality of specified ranges of addresses into the at least one cache. A start address and size of each specified range is dependent on the first and second address-range-specifying parameters. The stride parameter specifies an offset between start addresses of successive specified ranges. Use of the range prefetch instruction helps to improve programmability and improve the balance between prefetch coverage and circuit area of the prefetch circuitry.

In one embodiment, a processor includes: a plurality of registers; a front end circuit to fetch and decode a non-serializing register write instruction, the non-serializing register write instruction to cause a value to be stored in a first register of the plurality of registers; and an execution circuit coupled to the front end circuit. The execution circuit, in response to the non-serializing register write instruction, is to determine an amount of serialization for the non-serializing register write instruction and execute the non-serializing register write instruction according to the amount of serialization. Other embodiments are described and claimed.