Avago Technologies General IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited

Geoffrey Barrett

Sophie Wilson

John Redford

Tariq Kurd

A method and system for branch prediction are provided herein. The method includes executing a program, wherein the program comprising multiple procedures, and setting bits in a taken branch history register to indicate whether a branch is taken or not taken during execution of instructions in the program. The method further includes the steps of calling a procedure in the program and overwriting, responsive to calling the procedure, the contents of the taken branch history register to a start address for the procedure.

System and method for branch prediction using two branch history tables and presetting a global branch history register

A method and apparatus for zero overheard loops is provided herein. The method includes the steps of identifying, by a decoder, a loop instruction and identifying, by the decoder, a last instruction in a loop body that corresponds to the loop instruction. The method further includes the steps of generating, by the decoder, a branch instruction that returns execution to a beginning of the loop body, and enqueing, by the decoder, the branch instruction into a branch reservation queue concurrently with an enqueing of the last instruction in a reservation queue.

Zero overhead looping by a decoder generating and enqueuing a branch instruction

A processor including a register file having a plurality of registers, and configured for out-of-order instruction execution, further includes a renamer unit that produces generation numbers that are associated with register file addresses to provide a renamed version of a register that is temporally offset from an existing version of that register rather than assigning a non-programmer-visible physical register as the renamed register. The processor includes a small reset DHL Gshare branch prediction unit coupled to an instruction cache and configured to provide speculative addresses to the instruction cache.

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Bristol, United Kingdom

Geoffrey Barrett