An apparatus and method is described herein for providing robust speculative code section abort control mechanisms. Hardware is able to track speculative code region abort events, conditions, and/or scenarios, such as an explicit abort instruction, a
A?system?management?mode?(SMM) of operating a processor includes only a basic set of hardwired hooks or mechanisms in the processor for supporting SMM. Most of SMM functionality, such as the processing actions performed when entering and exiting SMM,
A method and apparatus for executing lock instructions speculatively in an out-of-order processor are disclosed. In one embodiment, a prediction is made whether a given lock instruction will actually be contended. If not, then the lock instruction ma
A speculative?store?buffer is speculatively updated in response to speculative store?memory operations buffered by a?load/store?unit in a microprocessor. Instead of performing dependency checking for?load?memory operations among the?store?memory oper
In one embodiment of the present invention, a method includes switching between a first address space and a second address space, determining if the second address space exists in a list of address spaces; and maintaining entries of the first address
BACKGROUND Many modern operating systems (OS's) use the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) standard, e.g., Rev. 3.0b, published Oct. 10, 2006, for optimizing system power. An ACPI implementation allows a processor core to be in differe
It’s been awhile since I posted something here, and I figured I might use this spot to explain some general points about graphics hardware and software as of 2011; you can find functional descriptions of what the graphics stack in your PC does, but u