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Branch prediction attempts to guess whether a conditional jump will be taken or not. Branch target prediction attempts to guess the target of a taken conditional or unconditional jump before it is computed by decoding and executing the instruction itself. Branch prediction and branch target prediction are often combined into the same circuitry.
In computer architecture, predication is a feature that provides an alternative to conditional transfer of control, as implemented by conditional branch machine instructions. Predication works by having conditional ( predicated ) non-branch instructions associated with a predicate , a Boolean value used by the instruction to control whether the ...
[a] Branch (or branching, branched) may also refer to the act of switching execution to a different instruction sequence as a result of executing a branch instruction. Branch instructions are used to implement control flow in program loops and conditionals (i.e., executing a particular sequence of instructions only if certain conditions are ...
Speculative execution is an optimization technique where a computer system performs some task that may not be needed. Work is done before it is known whether it is actually needed, so as to prevent a delay that would have to be incurred by doing the work after it is known that it is needed.
Superscalar, branch prediction PowerPC e500: Dual 7 stage Multi-core PowerPC e600: 3-issue 7 stage Superscalar out-of-order execution, branch prediction PowerPC e5500: 2010 4-issue 7 stage Out-of-order, multi-core PowerPC e6500: 2012 Multi-core PowerPC 603: 4 5 execution units, branch prediction, no SMP PowerPC 603q: 1996 5 In-order PowerPC 604 ...
On average, every fifth instruction executed is a branch, so without any intervention, that's a high amount of stalling. Techniques such as branch prediction and speculative execution are used to lessen these branch penalties. Branch prediction is where the hardware makes educated guesses on whether a particular branch will be taken.
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The local predictor is a two-level table which records the history of individual branches. It consists of a 1,024-entry by 10-bit branch history table. A two-level table was used as the prediction accuracy is similar to that of a larger single-level table while requiring fewer bits of storage. It has a 1,024-entry branch prediction table.