In the following we focus on the processor core [3], which is a multithreaded Java processor with a four-stage pipeline. Because of its application in embedded systems, the processor core of the Komodo microcontroller is kept at a simple hardware level. In these systems low power consumption and a small die size are very important. Figure 3 shows the multithreaded pipeline enhanced by the priority manager and the signal unit. The pipeline consists of the following four pipeline stages: instruction fetch (IF), instruction decode (ID), operand fetch (OF), and execute/memory/io access (EXE). These four stages perform the following tasks: