SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR POWER SAVING IN PIPELINED MICROPROCESSORS

摘要

A system and method for preserving power in a microprocessor pipeline (300). The system includes a register file read control unit (305), the read control unit (305) being configured to monitor one or more outputs from a control /decode unit (205) of the pipeline (300) and monitor write addresses from one or more other stages of the pipeline. The system also includes one or more read inhibit units (301, 303) each having an input, an output, and an enable terminal, the output of each of the one or more read inhibit units (301, 303) being coupled to a unique register port of a register file (109) within the pipeline (300). The input of each of the one or more read inhibit units (301, 303) being coupled to the control/decode unit (205), and the enable terminal of each of the one or more read inhibit units (301, 303) being coupled to a unique output of the read control unit (305).