Flexible register window structure for multi-tasking

A multiple register windowing technique was recently employed by various systems which emphasizes fast procedure (function) calls. However, it has one major problem to overcome: the high overhead associated with context switching. For this unique technique to become attractive for system designers, it requires architectural support to minimize the overhead encountered by frequent task switching. The paper proposes an efficient way to resolve this critical disadvantage of the windowing technique. To avoid the severe time consuming process for switching tasks, and to retain the advantages of multiple register window philosophy, one approach-utilizing a flexible register window file-is presented and analyzed for both inter-procedure and inter-task operations. Design tradeoffs are examined in an analytic study, the results of which are summarized in the conclusion.<>