The disclosure relates to technology for pre-fetching data. An apparatus comprises a processor core, pre-fetch logic, and a memory hierarchy. The pre-fetch logic is configured to generate cache pre-fetch requests for a program instruction identified by a program counter. The pre-fetch logic is configured to track one or more statistics with respect to the cache pre-fetch requests. The pre-fetch logic is configured to link the one or more statistics with the program counter. The pre-fetch logic is configured to determine a degree of the cache pre-fetch requests for the program instruction based on the one or more statistics. The memory hierarchy comprises main memory and a hierarchy of caches. The memory hierarchy further comprises a memory controller configured to pre-fetch memory blocks identified in the cache pre-fetch requests from a current level in the memory hierarchy into a higher level of the memory hierarchy.

In one embodiment, a processor includes a memory hierarchy and a core coupled to the memory hierarchy. The memory hierarchy stores encrypted data, and the core includes circuitry to access the encrypted data stored in the memory hierarchy, decrypt the encrypted data to yield decrypted data, perform an entropy test on the decrypted data, and update a processor state based on a result of the entropy test. The entropy test may include determining a number of data entities in the decrypted data whose values are equal to one another, determining a number of adjacent data entities in the decrypted data whose values are equal to one another, determining a number of data entities in the decrypted data whose values are equal to at least one special value from a set of special values, or determining a sum of n highest data entity value frequencies.

Methods and systems for allowing software components that operate at a specific exception level (e.g., EL-3 to EL-1, etc.) to repeatedly or continuously observe or evaluate the integrity of software components operating at a lower exception level (e.g., EL-2 to EL-0) to ensure that the software components have not been corrupted or compromised (e.g., subjected to malware, cyberattacks, etc.) include a computing device that identifies, by a component operating at a higher exception level (“HEL component”), at least one of a current vector base address (VBA), an exception raising instruction (ERI) address, or a control and system register value associated with a component operating at a lower exception level (“LEL component”). The computing device may perform a responsive action in response to determining that the current VBA, the ERT address, or control and system register value do not match the corresponding reference data.

Systems and methods are disclosed for checker cores for fault tolerant processing. For example, an integrated circuit (e.g., a processor) for executing instructions includes a processor core configured to execute instructions of an instruction set; an outer memory system configured to store instructions and data; and a checker core configured to receive committed instruction packets from the processor core and check the committed instruction packets for errors, wherein the checker core is configured to utilize a memory pathway of the processor core to access the outer memory system by receiving instructions and data read from the outer memory system as portions of committed instruction packets from the processor core. For example, data flow from the processor core to the checker core may be limited to committed instruction packets received via dedicated a wire bundle.

A memory device includes a memory having a memory bank, a processor in memory (PIM) circuit, and control logic. The PIM circuit includes instruction memory storing at least one instruction provided from a host. The PIM circuit is configured to process an operation using data provided by the host or data read from the memory bank and to store at least one instruction provided by the host. The control logic is configured to decode a command/address received from the host to generate a decoding result and to perform a control operation so that one of i) a memory operation on the memory bank is performed and ii) the PIM circuit performs a processing operation, based on the decoding result. A counting value of a program counter instructing a position of the instruction memory is controlled in response to the command/address instructing the processing operation be performed.

Techniques are disclosed for eliding load and store barriers while maintaining garbage collection invariants. Embodiments described herein include techniques for identifying an instruction, such as a safepoint poll, that checks whether to pause a thread between execution of a dominant and dominated access to the same data field. If a poll instruction is identified between the two data accesses, then a pointer for the data field may be recorded in an entry associated with the poll instruction. When the thread is paused to execute a garbage collection operation, the recorded information may be used to update values associated with the data field in memory such that the dominated access may be executed without any load or store barriers.

A method for managing memory leaks in a memory device includes grouping, by a garbage collection system, a plurality of similar memory allocations of the memory device into one or more Unique Fixed Identifiers (UFIs); identifying, by the garbage collection system, one of the one or more UFIs having a highest accumulated memory size and adding each of the plurality of memory allocations in the identified one of the one or more UFIs into a Potential Leak Candidate List (PLCL); identifying, by the garbage collection system, the memory leaks in the memory device by identifying unreferenced memory addresses associated with the plurality of memory allocations in the PLCL; and releasing, by the garbage collection system, the identified unreferenced memory addresses associated with the plurality of memory allocations corresponding to the memory leaks into the memory device.

A memory circuit included in a computer system includes a memory array that stores multiple program instructions included in compressed program code. In response to receiving a fetch instruction from a processor circuit, the memory circuit may retrieve a particular instruction from the memory array. The memory circuit may, in response to a determination that the particular instruction is a particular type of instruction, retrieve additional program instructions from the memory array using an address included in the particular instruction, and send the particular program instruction and the additional program instructions to the processor circuit.

An embodiment of an integrated circuit may comprise a return stack buffer (RSB), a speculative return stack buffer (SRSB), and circuitry coupled to the RSB and the SRSB, the circuitry to track a count until the SRSB is empty at a time of a prediction by a branch prediction unit, and return an output from the branch prediction unit that corresponds to one of the RSB and the SRSB based at least in part on the count until the SRSB is empty. Other embodiments are disclosed and claimed.

A tracing circuit is integrated in a semiconductor device along with a microprocessor including an m-bit program counter, and externally outputs a tracing clock along with an n-bit tracing data (where 2≤n≤m). The tracing circuit, when the program counter remains unchanged, synchronously with the tracing clock sets the tracing data to a first output value; when the program counter is incremented, synchronously with the tracing clock sets the tracing data to a second output value; and when the program counter is loaded, synchronously with the tracing clock sets the tracing data to a third output value, and then suspends the state machine in the microprocessor and split-outputs, as the tracing data, the branch destination address or interrupt destination address loaded in the program counter.