US Patent 9268627 Processor hang detection and recovery

Various aspects provide forced halt functionality for a processor to facilitate troubleshooting of processor hang situations. In the event that the processor initiates a transaction that does not receive a completion acknowledgement, halt detection logic can initiate a forced halt sequence that causes the processor to abort all pending transactions and transition to a debug state so that the internal state of the processor can be viewed. In addition, the processor can maintain a record of the processor state at the time that the hung transaction was dispatched, which can be viewed during debug mode to facilitate determining a cause of the hung transaction.