Microprocessor with built-in instruction tracing capability
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United States of America Patent
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Aug 31, 1999
Grant Date -
N/A
app pub date -
Apr 15, 1997
filing date -
Apr 15, 1997
priority date (Note) -
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Abstract
A computer system employing an instruction tracing mechanism includes a memory and a CPU. The memory includes a trace buffer used to store records of the instruction tracing. Entries in the trace buffer are pointed to by a tracer pointer. The memory is coupled to the CPU via a bus interface unit. Instructions are passed from the memory to the CPU via the bus interface unit and are queued in an instruction cache, which includes a byte queue. The CPU further includes a control unit coupled to a control register, the tracer pointer and a maskable ROM. The control unit controls and activates the instruction tracing mechanism. In response to software sitting a bit in the control register, the control unit functions to retrieve a special tracing microcode sequence from MROM to provide a trace record of the instructions as they are passed to the instruction decoders. A counting mechanism may also be activated to count instructions and store the count in the memory. The computer system further includes a register file coupled to the instruction decoders and functional units, also coupled to instruction decoders, to receive and process the instructions.
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