Provided is a data processing method including the operations of storing, in a register, a first immediate portion included in a first instruction, from among the first immediate portion and a second immediate portion that constitute an immediate value, which is an operand; determining the immediate value by catenating the second immediate portion included in a second instruction with the stored first immediate portion; and performing an operation by using a value indicated by the second instruction and the determined immediate value.

A method and device for memory access in processors is provided. A processor, comprising a plurality of computational units, is capable of executing a single instruction on multiple pieces of data simultaneously (SIMD). A read operation is initiated to load data from memory into the plurality of computational units (CUs) arranged into a plurality of CU groups. The memory is arranged into a plurality of memory macro-blocks each associated with a respective CU group of the plurality of CU groups. For each CU group a respective first memory address is determined and for each CU group, the data in the associated memory macro-block is accessed at the respective first memory address.

A very long instruction word (VLIW) processor that performs efficient processing including extended bits operations is provided. The VLIW processor includes an instruction control unit, a register file unit, and an instruction execution unit. The instruction execution unit includes a plurality of slots, and a state register arranged between the second slot and the third slot to transfer N-bit data between the second and third slots. The VLIW processor stores data output from the third slot into the state register and uses the data, and thus achieves efficient processing including bit-expanded operations, such as processing performed in response to instructions commonly used in image processing, image recognition, and other processing, while preventing scaling up of the circuit.

Accessing partial cachelines in a data cache including storing a first portion of a cacheline in a cache entry of the data cache; relaunching a load instruction targeting a second portion of the cacheline, wherein the second portion of the cacheline is not stored in the data cache; determining that the load instruction targets a portion of the cacheline not stored in the cache entry; storing the second portion of the cacheline in the data cache; and reading the second portion of the cacheline from the data cache according to the load instruction.

Software instructions are executed on a processor within a computer system to configure a steaming engine with stream parameters to define a multidimensional array. The stream parameters define a size for each dimension of the multidimensional array, a null vector count (N), and a selected dimension. Data is fetched from a memory coupled to the streaming engine responsive to the stream parameters. A stream of vectors is formed for the multidimensional array responsive to the stream parameters from the data fetched from memory. N null stream vectors are inserted into the stream of vectors for the selected dimension without fetching respective null data from the memory.

Supplemental instruction dispatch may be used in some instances in a parallel slice processor to dispatch additional instructions, referred to as supplemental instructions, to supplemental instruction ports of execution slices and using primary instruction ports of one or more execution slices to supply one or more source operands for such supplemental instructions. In addition, in some instances, in lieu of or in addition to supplemental instruction dispatch, selective slice partitioning may be used to selectively partition groups of execution slices in a parallel slice processor based upon a threading mode within which such execution slices are executing.

In one embodiment, a processor includes a write combining buffer that includes a memory having a plurality of entries. The entries may be allocated to committed store operations transmitted by a load/store unit in the processor, and subsequent committed store operations may merge data with previous store memory operations in the buffer if the subsequent committed store operations are to addresses that match addresses of the previous committed store operations within a predefined granularity (e.g. the width of a cache port). The write combining buffer may be configured to retain up to N entries of committed store operations, but may also be configured to write one or more of the entries to the data cache responsive to receiving more than a threshold amount of non-merging committed store operations in the write combining buffer.

Expandably wide operations are disclosed in which operands wider than the data path between a processor and memory are used in executing instructions. The expandably wide operands reduce the influence of the characteristics of the associated processor in the design of functional units performing calculations, including the width of the register file, the processor clock rate, the exception subsystem of the processor, and the sequence of operations in loading and use of the operand in a wide cache memory.

A processor of an aspect includes a decode unit to decode memory access instructions of a first type and to output corresponding memory access operations, and to decode memory access instructions of a second type and to output corresponding memory access operations. The processor also includes a load store queue coupled with the decode unit. The load store queue includes a load buffer that is to have a plurality of load buffer entries, and a store buffer that is to have a plurality of store buffer entries. The load store queue also includes a buffer entry allocation controller coupled with the load buffer and coupled with the store buffer. The buffer entry allocation controller is to allocate load and store buffer entries based at least in part on whether memory access operations correspond to memory access instructions of the first type or of the second type. Other processors, methods, and systems, are also disclosed.

A computer system, processor, and/or load-store unit has a data cache for storing data, the data cache having a plurality of entries to store the data, each data cache entry addressed by a row and a Way, each data cache row having a plurality of the data cache Ways; a first Address Directory organized and arranged the same as the data cache where each first Address Directory entry is addressed by a row and a Way where each row has a plurality of Ways; a store reorder queue for tracking the store instructions; and a load reorder queue for tracking load instruction. Each of the load and store reorder queues having a Way bit field, preferably less than six bits, for identifying the data cache Way and/or a first Address Directory Way where the Way bit field acts as a proxy for a larger address, e.g. a real page number.