Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Testing speculative instruction execution with test cases placed in memory segments with non-naturally aligned data boundaries
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Application No.: US15344768Application Date: 2016-11-07
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Publication No.: US10223225B2Publication Date: 2019-03-05
- Inventor: Manoj Dusanapudi , Shakti Kapoor
- Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
- Applicant Address: US NY Armonk
- Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
- Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: US NY Armonk
- Agency: Martin & Associates, LLC
- Agent Bret J. Petersen
- Main IPC: G06F9/30
- IPC: G06F9/30 ; G06F11/22 ; G06F11/26 ; G06F11/263

Abstract:
Test cases for testing speculative execution of instructions are replicated into a memory with non-naturally aligned data boundaries to create a non-contiguous instruction stream to efficiently test a processor. Placing test cases with test code and test data in the non-naturally aligned data boundaries as described herein allows test code to test speculative execution of branches. The test case includes a branch with a hint bit set to cause the hardware to mispredict the path of the branch to cause speculative execution of test code, bad code or erroneously execute data. The processor can then be tested to see if it properly flushes the speculatively executed code upon taking the opposite branch of the mispredicted path.
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