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. 22, 2005
Filed:
Dec. 12, 1996
Mitchell Alexander Poplingher, Campbell, CA (US);
Tse-yu Yeh, Milpitas, CA (US);
Mitchell Alexander Poplingher, Campbell, CA (US);
Tse-Yu Yeh, Milpitas, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for speculatively providing a branch target address as specified by an impending branch operation. In one embodiment, a branch prediction unit of the present invention is operable to pre-decode and pre-execute branch operations in a pipestage prior to a decoding stage and an execution stage of a pipelined processor. The branch operations of the present invention are performed via multiple instructions separately scheduled and executed, wherein a first instruction of a branch operation specifies a branch target, and a second instruction of a branch operation specifies when a branch of the branch operation is to occur. In an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the branch prediction unit is further operable to pre-fetch instructions from a memory hierarchy into a local instruction memory device in response to the branch prediction unit pre-decoding a first instruction of a branch operation.