Case block table for predicting the outcome of blocks of conditional branches having a common operand

An apparatus for predicting outcomes of blocks of conditional branch instructions having a common operand, comprising:

• a look-up table including a plurality of entries, each of the entries having a first field for storing a starting address for a block of the conditional branch instructions, a second field for storing a previous value of the common operand for the block and a third field for storing a target address produced when the previous value was used to execute the block;
• a processor, coupled to the look-up table, the processor including:
• (a) a decoder, the decoder including instruction detection means for detecting an instruction indicative that one of the blocks is to be processed;
• (b) instruction execution means, coupled to the decoder, for determining the starting address of the one of the blocks and a current value of the common operand and for determining whether the look-up table contains a corresponding entry wherein the starting address of the one of the blocks matches data in the first field and the current value of the common operand matches the previous value of the common operand;
• (c) instruction fetch means, responsive to a determination that there is a corresponding entry, for prefetching an instruction at the target address stored in the third field of the corresponding entry prior to fetching of any of said conditional branches in the one of the blocks.