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US 2012/0072708 A1Published application
History based pipelined branch prediction
OwnerDavid A. Dunn, John P. Banninginventors
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Abstract
Systems and methods for history based pipelined branch prediction. In one embodiment, access to prediction information to predict a plurality of branches within an instruction block is initiated in a same clock cycle of the computer processor as a fetch of the instruction block. The prediction information may be available to the predictor not later than a clock cycle of the computer processor in which the plurality of branches are decoded.
Claims20
An apparatus comprising:
- a history based branch predictor of a computer processor configured to initiate an access of prediction information to predict a plurality of branches within an instruction block prior to updating history information for all previous branches within the instruction block.
A processor comprising:
- a history based branch predictor configured to predict at least two branches based on a single access to a single ported memory comprising prediction information.
A method comprising:
- accessing of prediction information to predict a plurality of branches within an instruction block prior to updating history information for all previous branches within said instruction block;
- and
- predicting at least one of said plurality of branches responsive to said accessing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.