| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080282059 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING MEMBERSHIP IN A SET OF ITEMS IN A COMPUTER SYSTEM - A method and apparatus for maintaining membership in a set of items to be used in a predetermined manner in a computer system. A representation of each member of the set is mapped into a number of components of a primary and secondary vector when a member is added to the set. Periodically, the primary vector is changed to the secondary vector and the secondary vector to the primary vector. When members of the set are deleted, the components of the secondary vector are changed to indicate deletion of these members after the primary vector is changed to the secondary vector. Finally, membership in the set is determined by examining the components in the primary vector, and the members in the set of items are then used in a predetermined manner in the computer system. More specifically, in a sample embodiment of the present invention, membership in the set would determine if data is to be stored or removed from cache memory in a computer system. This invention, for example, provides a low cost and high performance mechanism to phase out aging membership information in a prefeteching mechanism for caching data or instructions in a computer system. | 11-13-2008 |
| 20090150874 | BINARY PROGRAMMABLE METHOD FOR APPLICATION PERFORMANCE DATA COLLECTION - A method for application performance data collection includes steps or acts of: customizing a performance tool for collecting application performance data of an application; modifying the application by inserting the performance tool while the application does not need to be rebuilt from the source; executing the application; and collecting the application execution performance data such that only interesting data is collected. Customizing the performance tool proceeds by implementing at least one configurable tracing function that can be programmed by the user; compiling the function(s) into an object file; and inserting the object file into the performance tool using binary instrumentation. | 06-11-2009 |
| 20090216956 | SYSTEM, METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR ENHANCING TIMELINESS OF CACHE PREFETCHING - A system, method, and computer program product for enhancing timeliness of cache memory prefetching in a processing system are provided. The system includes a stride pattern detector to detect a stride pattern for a stride size in an amount of bytes as a difference between successive cache accesses. The system also includes a confidence counter. The system further includes eager prefetching control logic for performing a method when the stride size is less than a cache line size. The method includes adjusting the confidence counter in response to the stride pattern detector detecting the stride pattern, comparing the confidence counter to a confidence threshold, and requesting a cache prefetch in response to the confidence counter reaching the confidence threshold. The system may also include selection logic to select between the eager prefetching control logic and standard stride prefetching control logic. | 08-27-2009 |
| 20100287536 | PROFILING APPLICATION PERFORMANCE ACCORDING TO DATA STRUCTURE - During runtime of a binary program file, streams of instructions are executed and memory references, generated by instrumentation applied to given ones of the instructions that refer to memory locations, are collected. A transformation is performed, based on the executed streams of instructions and the collected memory references, to obtain a table. The table lists memory events of interest for active data structures for each function in the program file. The transformation is performed to translate memory addresses for given ones of the instructions and given ones of the data structures into locations and variable names in a source file corresponding to the binary file. At least the memory events of interest are displayed, and the display is organized so as to correlate the memory events of interest with corresponding ones of the data structures. | 11-11-2010 |
| 20110138125 | EVENT TRACKING HARDWARE - An event tracking hardware engine having N (≧2) caches is invoked when an event of interest occurs, using a corresponding key. The engine stores, for each of the different kinds of events, a corresponding cumulative number of occurrences, by carrying out additional steps. In some instances, the additional steps include searching in the N caches for an entry for the key; if an entry for the key is found, and no overflow of the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences for the entry for the key would occur by incrementing the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences, incrementing; if the entry for the key is found, and overflow would occur, promoting the entry to a next highest cache; and if the entry for the key is not found, entering the entry for the key in a zeroth one of the caches with the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences being initialized. In other instances, the additional steps include searching in a zeroth one of the caches for an entry for the key; if an entry for the key is found in the zeroth one of the caches, and no overflow of the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences for the entry for the key would occur by incrementing the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences, incrementing; if the entry for the key is found in the zeroth one of the caches, and overflow would occur, promoting the entry from the zeroth one of the caches in which the entry exists to a next highest cache; and if the entry for the key is not found, entering the entry for the key in the zeroth one of the caches with the corresponding cumulative number of occurrences being initialized. The engine includes a plurality of caches and a corresponding plurality of control circuits. | 06-09-2011 |
| 20110238962 | Register Checkpointing for Speculative Modes of Execution in Out-of-Order Processors - A mechanism is provided for generating a checkpoint for a speculatively executed portion of code. The mechanisms identify, during a speculative execution of a portion of code, a register renaming operation occurring to an entry in a register renaming table of the processor. In response to the register renaming operation occurring to the register renaming table, a determination is made as to whether an update to an entry in a hardware-implemented recovery renaming table is to be performed. If so, the entry in the hardware-implemented recovery renaming table is updated. The entry in the recovery renaming table is part of the checkpoint for the speculative execution of the portion of code. | 09-29-2011 |
| 20110314259 | OPERATING A STACK OF INFORMATION IN AN INFORMATION HANDLING SYSTEM - A pointer is for pointing to a next-to-read location within a stack of information. For pushing information onto the stack: a value is saved of the pointer, which points to a first location within the stack as being the next-to-read location; the pointer is updated so that it points to a second location within the stack as being the next-to-read location; and the information is written for storage at the second location. For popping the information from the stack: in response to the pointer, the information is read from the second location as the next-to-read location; and the pointer is restored to equal the saved value so that it points to the first location as being the next-to-read location. | 12-22-2011 |
