Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Hardware processors and methods for extended microcode patching and reloading
-
Application No.: US16236434Application Date: 2018-12-29
-
Publication No.: US11429385B2Publication Date: 2022-08-30
- Inventor: Sergiu D. Ghetie
- Applicant: Intel Corporation
- Applicant Address: US CA Santa Clara
- Assignee: Intel Corporation
- Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: US CA Santa Clara
- Agency: Nicholson De Vos Webster & Elliott LLP
- Main IPC: G06F9/24
- IPC: G06F9/24 ; G06F12/0875 ; G06F1/3203 ; G06F9/26

Abstract:
Hardware processors and methods for extended microcode patching through on-die and off-die secure storage are described. In one embodiment, the additional storage resources used for storing micro-operations are section(s) of a cache that are unused at runtime and/or unused by a configuration of a processor. For example, the additional storage resources may be a section of a cache that is used to store context information from a core when the core is transitioned to a power state that shuts off voltage to the core. Non-limiting examples of such sections are one or more sections for: storage of context information for a transition of a thread to idle or off, storage of context information for a transition of a core for a multiple core processor to idle or off, or storage of coherency information for a transition of a cache coherency circuit (e.g., cache box (CBo)) to idle or off.
Public/Granted literature
- US20200210196A1 HARDWARE PROCESSORS AND METHODS FOR EXTENDED MICROCODE PATCHING Public/Granted day:2020-07-02
Information query