Back to results
US 2006/0224871 A1Published application
Wide branch target buffer
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorThang Tran
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system comprising a pipeline in which a first plurality of instructions are processed, and a branch prediction module coupled to the pipeline, where the branch prediction module is adapted to predict the outcomes of at least some branch instructions in the first plurality of instructions and in a second plurality of instructions that have not yet been fetched into the pipeline.
Claims21
A system, comprising:
- a pipeline in which a first plurality of instructions are processed;
- and
- a branch prediction module coupled to the pipeline and adapted to predict the outcomes of at least some branch instructions in said first plurality of instructions and in a second plurality of instructions that have not yet been fetched into the pipeline.
A processor, comprising:
- a first module adapted to store a plurality of instructions;
- a second module coupled to the first module and adapted to determine whether a first quantity of instructions in the first module comprises a branch instruction, and to predict the outcome of the branch instruction;
- and
- a pipeline coupled to the first module and adapted to process instructions received based on said prediction;
- wherein the first quantity of instructions is at least approximately twice a quantity of instructions fetched from the first module per clock cycle.
2 more elements
A method, comprising:
- fetching a first plurality of instructions for processing in a pipeline;
- determining whether a second plurality of instructions comprises at least one branch instruction, the second plurality of instructions greater than the first plurality of instructions;
- if the second plurality of instructions comprises a branch instruction, predicting an outcome of the branch instruction;
- and
- routing the second plurality of instructions based on said prediction.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.