Advancing a program counter to a start of a subsequent cache line based on a straddling group indicator in a current cache line

Abstract

Introduced herein is a program counter advancing technique that uses NOP padding without its limitations. During a build process, the introduced technique removes EOG markers for instruction groups that are immediately followed by the NOP instructions that are immediately followed by an instruction group beginning at a start of a cache line. As such, during an execution process, when the processing unit detects an absence of an EOG marker in the requested instruction group, it knows that a group of NOP instructions are about to follow and skips over them by directly advancing the program counter to a start of a subsequent cache line where the next instruction group starts. In addition to the presence of an EOG marker, the introduced technique also takes into account whether the requested instruction group is a straddling group when advancing the program counter to a start of the subsequent cache line.