The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 17, 2020
Filed:
Aug. 30, 2016
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Steven R. Havlir, Austin, TX (US);
ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
Techniques for improving branch target buffer ('BTB') operation. A compressed BTB is included within a branch prediction unit along with an uncompressed BTB. To support prediction of up to two branch instructions per cycle, the uncompressed BTB includes entries that each store data for up to two branch predictions. The compressed BTB includes entries that store data for only a single branch instruction for situations where storing that single branch instruction in the uncompressed BTB would waste space in that buffer. Space would be wasted in the uncompressed BTB due to the fact that, in order to support two branch lookups per cycle, prediction data for two branches must have certain features in common (such as cache line address) in order to be stored together in a single entry.