Reducing power by shutting down portions of a stacked register file

Abstract

Many processor architectures include registers in the form of a stacked register file, for holding data used during execution of processing operations. As taught herein, the physical registers forming the stack are organized into banks. One or more of the banks is activated and deactivated, as needed to meet the demands of register allocations.

Description

technical field [0001] The present teachings relate to techniques to selectively shut down portions of a set of registers, eg, register banks that form the stack register file of a processor such as a microprocessor or compiler. Background technique [0002] A register file is a high-speed storage structure used to temporarily store information. Processors typically include one or more register files to maintain data or instructions relatively close to the processor core. Register files typically serve as the primary source of data for the processor's execution resources, and high performance processors typically include larger register files to take advantage of their lower access latencies. [0003] Register management techniques allocate registers to processes, fill registers from slower storage media, and later empty registers to other storage media when registers are reallocated to other programs or functions. For example, if the active second function requires more r...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Typically, unused portions of the register file are not intentionally closed because these registers hold values ​​that can be used at any time and are lost when the registers are powered down

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