A method for sorting of a vector in a processor is provided that includes performing, by the processor in response to a vector sort instruction, generating a control input vector for vector permutation logic comprised in the processor based on values in lanes of the vector and a sort order for the vector indicated by the vector sort instruction and storing the control input vector in a storage location.

An apparatus and method are provided for inhibiting instruction manipulation. The apparatus has execution circuitry for performing data processing operations in response to a sequence of instructions from an instruction set, and decoder circuitry for decoding each instruction in the sequence in order to generate control signals for the execution circuitry. Each instruction comprises a plurality of instruction bits, and the decoder circuitry is arranged to perform a decode operation on each instruction to determine from the value of each instruction bit, and knowledge of the instruction set, the control signals to be issued to the execution circuitry in response to that instruction. An input path to the decoder circuitry comprises a set of wires over which the instruction bits of each instruction are provided. Scrambling circuitry is used to perform a scrambling function on each instruction using a secret scrambling key, such that the wire within the set of wires over which any given instruction bit is provided to the decoder circuitry is dependent on the secret scrambling key. The decode operation performed by the decoder circuitry is then adapted to incorporate a descrambling function using the secret scrambling key to reverse the effect of the scrambling function. As a result, independent of which wire any given instruction bit is provided on, the decode operation is arranged when decoding a given instruction to correctly interpret each instruction bit of that given instruction, based on knowledge of the instruction set, in order to determine from the value of each instruction bit the control signals to be issued to the execution circuitry in response to that given instruction.

A method and apparatus is described herein for accessing a physical memory location referenced by a physical address with a processor. The processor fetches/receives instructions with references to virtual memory addresses and/or references to physical addresses. Translation logic translates the virtual memory addresses to physical addresses and provides the physical addresses to a common interface. Physical addressing logic decodes references to physical addresses and provides the physical addresses to a common interface based on a memory type stored by the physical addressing logic.

A processor includes: an address generating unit that, when an instruction decoded by a decoding unit is an instruction to execute arithmetic processing on a plurality of operand sets each including a plurality of operands that are objects of the arithmetic processing, in parallel a plurality of times, generates an address set corresponding to each of the operand sets of the arithmetic processing for each time, based on a certain address displacement with respect to the plurality of operands included in each of the operand sets; a plurality of instruction queues that hold the generated address sets corresponding to the respective operand sets, in correspondence to respective processing units; and a plurality of processing units that perform the arithmetic processing in parallel on the operand sets obtained based on the respective address sets outputted by the plurality of instruction queues.

A streaming engine employed in a digital signal processor specifies a fixed read only data stream. Once fetched the data stream is stored in two head registers for presentation to functional units in the fixed order. Data use by the functional unit is preferably controlled using the input operand fields of the corresponding instruction. A first read only operand coding supplies data from the first head register. A first read/advance operand coding supplies data from the first head register and also advances the stream to the next sequential data elements. Corresponding second read only operand coding and second read/advance operand coding operate similarly with the second head register. A third read only operand coding supplies double width data from both head registers.

A streaming engine employed in a digital signal processor specified a fixed data stream. Once started the data stream is read only and cannot be written. Once fetched the data stream is stored in a first-in-first-out buffer for presentation to functional units in the fixed order. Data use by the functional unit is controlled using the input operand fields of the corresponding instruction. A read only operand coding supplies the data an input of the functional unit. A read/advance operand coding supplies the data and also advances the stream to the next sequential data elements. The read only operand coding permits reuse of data without requiring a register of the register file for temporary storage.

In one embodiment, a processor includes fetch logic to fetch instructions, decode logic to decode the fetched instructions, and execution logic to execute at least some of the instructions. The decode logic may determine whether a flag portion of a first instruction to be folded is to be performed, and if not, accumulate a first immediate value of the first instruction with a folded immediate value obtained from an entry of an immediate buffer.

Embodiments detailed herein relate to matrix operations. In particular, the loading of a matrix (tile) from memory. For example, support for a loading instruction is described in the form of decode circuitry to decode an instruction having fields for an opcode, a destination matrix operand identifier, and source memory information, and execution circuitry to execute the decoded instruction to load groups of strided data elements from memory into configured rows of the identified destination matrix operand to memory.

Disclosed embodiments relate to computing dot products of nibbles in tile operands. In one example, a processor includes decode circuitry to decode a tile dot product instruction having fields for an opcode, a destination identifier to identify a M by N destination matrix, a first source identifier to identify a M by K first source matrix, and a second source identifier to identify a K by N second source matrix, each of the matrices containing doubleword elements, and execution circuitry to execute the decoded instruction to perform a flow K times for each element (m, n) of the specified destination matrix to generate eight products by multiplying each nibble of a doubleword element (M,K) of the specified first source matrix by a corresponding nibble of a doubleword element (K,N) of the specified second source matrix, and to accumulate and saturate the eight products with previous contents of the doubleword element.

Embodiments detailed herein relate to matrix operations. In particular, the loading of a matrix (tile) from memory. For example, support for a loading instruction is described in at least a form of decode circuitry to decode an instruction having fields for an opcode, a source matrix operand identifier, and destination memory information, and execution circuitry to execute the decoded instruction to store each data element of configured rows of the identified source matrix operand to memory based on the destination memory information.