Prefetcher based on PC-relative Operations

A method, comprising:

• executing, by a computing system, load instructions that access data at an address indicated by a given load instruction;
• generating, by the computing system, prefetch requests to access data predicted to be utilized by load instructions, including:
• detecting a set of one or more instructions that specify a PC-relative arithmetic operation, that depends on one or more immediate values in the one or more instructions, followed by a load operation;
• in response to the detection, performing the PC-relative arithmetic operation to determine a target address for the load operation;
• and
• initiating a data prefetch to the determined target address.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions of a hardware description programming language stored thereon that, when processed by a computing system, program the computing system to generate a computer simulation model, wherein the model represents a hardware circuit that includes:

• processor circuitry configured to execute load instructions that access data at an address indicated by a given load instruction;
• prefetch circuitry configured to generate prefetch requests to access data predicted to be utilized by load instructions, including to:
• detect a set of one or more instructions that specify a PC-relative arithmetic operation, that depends on one or more immediate values in the one or more instructions, followed by a load operation;
• in response to the detection, perform the PC-relative arithmetic operation to determine a target address for the load operation;
• and
• initiate a data prefetch to the determined target address.