Inventors:
Stavros Kalafatis - Portland OR
Alan B. Kyker - Potland OR
Robert D. Fisch - Portland OR
Assignee:
Intel Corporation - Santa Clara CA
International Classification:
G06F 900
US Classification:
709108, 709103, 712219, 712228
Abstract:
A method of performing a thread switching operation within a multithreaded processor. The dispatch of a first predetermined quantity of instruction information for a first thread, from an instruction streaming buffer to an instruction pre-decoder within the multithreaded processor, is detected. Responsive to the detection of the dispatch of the first predetermined quantity of instruction information for the first thread, a thread switching operation is performed with respect to the output of the instruction streaming buffer. The dispatch of instruction information for a second thread from the instruction streaming buffer is thus commenced. The utilization of processor resources is distributed between threads according to the quantity of instruction data for a particular thread that has been processed (or dispatch for processing), and not according to an arbitrary timing mechanism.