Specification Clarifications
70
Specification
Update
Specification Clarifications
The Specification Clarifications listed in this section apply to the following documents:
•
Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor in the 423-pin Package, Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor
in the 478-pin Package Datasheet
•
Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor in the 478-pin Package Datasheet
•
Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor with 512-KB L2 Cache on 0.13 Micron Process and
Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor Extreme Edition Supporting Hyper-Threading
Technology Datasheet
•
Intel
®
Pentium
®
4 Processor Extreme Edition on 0.13 Micron Process in the 775-
Land Package Electrical Mechanical and Thermal Specifications (EMTS)
•
Intel
®
64 and IA-32 Intel
®
Architectures Software Developer's Manual Volume 1,
2A, 2B, 3A, and 3B: System Programming Guide
All Specification Clarifications will be incorporated into a future version of the
appropriate Pentium 4 processor documentation.
1.
SPECIFICATION CLARIFICATION WITH RESPECT TO TIME STAMP
COUNTER
In the “Debugging and Performance Monitoring” chapter (Sections 15.8, 15.10.9 and
15.10.9.3) of the
IA-32 Intel
®
Architecture Software Developer’s Manual Volume 3:
System Programming Guide
, the Time Stamp Counter definition has been updated to
include support for the future processors. This change will be incorporated in the next
revision of the
IA-32 Intel
®
Architecture Software Developer’s Manual
.
15.8 TIME-STAMP COUNTER
The IA-32 architecture (beginning with the Pentium processor) defines a time-stamp
counter mechanism that can be used to monitor and identify the relative time
occurrence of processor events. The counter’s architecture includes the following
components:
•
TSC flag
— A feature bit that indicates the availability of the time-stamp counter.
The counter is available in an IA-32 processor implementation if the function
CPUID.1:EDX.TSC[bit 4] = 1.
•
IA32_TIME_STAMP_COUNTER MSR
(called TSC MSR in P6 family and Pentium
processors)
—
The MSR used as the counter
•
RDTSC instruction
—
An instruction used to read the time-stamp counter
•
TSD flag
—
A control register flag is used to enable or disable the time-stamp
counter (enabled if CR4.TSD[bit 2] = 1).
The time-stamp counter (as implemented in the P6 family, Pentium, Pentium M,
Pentium 4, and Intel Xeon processors) is a 64-bit counter that is set to 0 following a
RESET of the processor. Following a RESET, the counter will increment even when the