Device and method for realizing indirect branch and prediction among modern processors

Abstract

The invention discloses a device and a method for realizing indirect branch and prediction among modern processors, wherein the device comprises a branch direction predictor which generates a target pointer according to an indirect branch direction predicted by a plurality of sub-predictors, a target address mapping device which maps the target pointer generated by the branch direction predictor to a virtual address of an indexing branch target buffer, and a branch target buffer which distributes a target address item and a distribution item to an indirect branch instruction; the target address item is indexed through the virtual address; and the distribution item records the use condition of each indirect branch instruction target address item and is indexed through a value of a program counter. On the basis of not needing bulk-storage memory support, both the prediction accuracy and the processor energy efficiency are increased at the cost of time similar to that of the existing indirect branch prediction technique.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the design of a modern microprocessor and its application system, in particular to a device and a method for realizing the indirect transfer instruction prediction of the modern processor. Background technique [0002] Modern high-performance processors utilize branch instruction prediction techniques to exploit instruction-level parallelism to increase processor performance. Previous studies mainly focused on developing high-accuracy direct branch instruction prediction techniques, but for indirect branch instruction prediction, it is usually difficult to achieve high accuracy. In recent years, with the wide application of object-oriented language programs, there are more occasions where indirect transfer instructions are used. This type of instruction is usually used to implement common data structures such as virtual function pointers, function pointers, and Switch-Case statements. In addition, a dedicated indirect branch ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Techniques such as this use dedicated components are faster to predict, but their additional memory cell requirements take up real estate on the chip and generate a lot of power

The VPC technology that focuses on the use of existing branch prediction components can achieve higher prediction accuracy, but this kind of prediction that requires multiple cycles to complete an indirect transfer will hinder the further improvement of processor performance on the one hand, and on the other hand Incurs more energy overhead, resulting in less energy-efficient processors

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