An extended classification of inter-instruction dependency and its application in automatic synthesis of pipelined processors

The conventional classification of inter-instruction dependencies (data, anti and output dependencies) provides a basic scheme for the analysis of pipeline hazards in pipelined instruction set processors. However, it does not consider the relative spatial positions of micro-operations in the pipeline, thus providing limited hints to hardware designers and compiler writers about the hazard resolution in generalized pipeline structures. The authors propose an extension to the conventional classification of dependencies, which is capable of encapsulating the spatial/temporal relationship and providing precise hardware/software resolution strategies. With the extended classification and its associated hardware/software resolution strategies, they are able to systematically analyze the potential register-related pipeline hazards for a given pipeline structure, determine appropriate resolution strategies, and explore the tradeoff between hardware and software complexities. The methodology enables the systematic synthesis of high performance pipelined micro-architectures, and is useful to derive the back-end of the supporting compilers