公开(公告)号：GB2499487A

公开(公告)日：2013-08-21

申请号：GB201221914

申请日：2012-12-05

Applicant: IBM

Inventor： FRAZIER GILES ROGER ,  INDUKURU VENKAT RAJEEV ,  SPANNAUS JOHN FRED ,  MERICAS ALEXANDER ERIK

IPC: G06F11/34

Abstract: Disclosed is an event counter for electronic devices and a method of operation. The counter works by receiving a signal that indicates that an event in the device has occurred. The counter in then incremented each time a variable number of the events have occurred, and automatically increasing the variable number as the total count of events increases. The event counter may have a count mantissa and the variable number increases geometrically each time the count mantissa overflows. The count exponent may be incremented each time the count mantissa overflows, and the variable number is a pre-scale value equal to a counter base raised to the power of the value of the count exponent. The count mantissa may be set to a transitional value each time the count mantissa overflows, the transitional value equal to the overflow value of the count mantissa divided by the counter base.

公开(公告)号：GB2499487B

公开(公告)日：2014-02-12

申请号：GB201221914

申请日：2012-12-05

Applicant: IBM

Inventor： FRAZIER GILES ROGER ,  INDUKURU VENKAT RAJEEV ,  SPANNAUS JOHN FRED ,  MERICAS ALEXANDER ERIK

IPC: G06F11/34

Abstract: Occurrences of a particular event in an electronic device are counted by incrementing an event counter each time a variable number of the particular events have occurred, and automatically increasing that variable number as the total count increases. The variable number (prescale value) can increase geometrically according to a programmable counter base each time the count mantissa overflows. The event counter thereby provides hardware-implemented automatic prescaling while significantly reducing the number of interface bits required to support very large count ranges, and retaining high accuracy at very large event counts.