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:
Sep. 14, 2004
Filed:
Aug. 20, 1998
Milford John Peterson, Austin, TX (US);
David Andrew Schroter, Round Rock, TX (US);
Albert James Van Norstrand, Round Rock, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
For each predicted branch within a processor, an entry is maintained within a branch history table. The entry within the branch history table also includes an indication of the past record for that particular branch instruction, which indicates how correct the branch prediction has been in the past. When the field value associated with the predicted branch exceeds a certain threshold, indicating that the past predictions associated with that branch instruction have been at an unacceptable level, then the speculative branch instructions dispatching is suspended for that particular branch instruction. Alternative embodiments utilize a global indicator for suspending or cancelling instruction dispatch when the frequency of previous incorrect branch predictions increases beyond a preselected threshold.