COOPERATIVE INTERCONNECTION METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR REDUCING PORT PRESSURE IN A CLUSTERED PROCESSOR

The invention provides techniques for reducing the port pressure of a clustered processor. In an illustrative embodiment, the processor includes multiple clusters of execution units, with each of the clusters having a portion of a register file and a portion of a predicate file associated therewith, such that a given cluster is permitted to write to and read from its associated portions of the register and predicate files. A cooperative interconnection technique in accordance with the invention utilizes an inter-cluster move instruction specifying a source cluster and a destination cluster to copy a value from the source cluster to the destination cluster. The value is transmitted over a designated interconnect structure within the processor, and the inter-cluster move instruction is separated into two sub-instructions, one of which is executed by a unit in the source cluster, and another of which is executed by a unit in the destination cluster. These units may be, e.g., augmented ALUs or dedicated interface units within the clusters.