Multithreaded processor

Abstract

Provided is a multithreaded processor that can accurately estimate processing time necessary for each thread, and a multithreaded processor that simultaneously executes instruction streams, the multithreaded processor including: a computing unit group that executes instructions; an instruction scheduler that groups the instructions into groups for each of the instruction streams, the instructions being included in the each of instruction streams, and each of the groups being made up of instructions among the instructions to be simultaneously issued to the computing units; an instruction buffer which holds the instructions for each of the groups grouped by the instruction scheduler, the instructions being included in the each of instruction streams; and an issued instruction determining unit that reads the instructions for each of the groups from the instruction buffer in each of execution cycles of the multithreaded processor, and that issues the read instructions to the computing unit group.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a multi-thread processor, which efficiently uses a plurality of computing units by issuing instructions of a plurality of instruction streams in parallel. Background technique [0002] Media processing such as compression and expansion of digitized video data, audio data, etc. requires a huge amount of computation. Therefore, dedicated hardware for media processing, high-performance DSP (Digital Signal Processor: Digital Signal Processor), and the like are spreading. [0003] Many standards such as MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) 2, MPEG4, H.263, and H.264 have already been put into practical use in these media processing. Therefore, digital AV (Audio-Visual: Video Audio) equipment is required to support media processing of multiple standards. Furthermore, there is a tendency that each media processing application program becomes more and more complex, the size of images, the number of audio channels, etc. increas...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0005] The problem with the method of installing dedicated hardware is that although high-performance processing can be realized, if more functions need to be realized, the circuit scale will increase

Moreover, there is also a problem that additional hardware is required when adding new functions.

On the other hand, there is a problem in the method of media processing realized by using software that its performance is lower than that of the method equipped with dedicated hardware

[0008] However, with the method of media processing realized by using a multithreaded processor, there is a problem in distributing performance to multiple programs

[0009] Specifically, there is a problem that, since the time allocated to the video processing thread and the audio processing thread is insufficient, the video processing and audio processing cannot keep up, resulting in empty frames of the video, sound skipping of the audio, etc.

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