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BRANCH PREDICTION IN A DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS

  • US 20170139717A1
  • Filed: 10/26/2016
  • Published: 05/18/2017
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2015
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. Apparatus comprising:

  • instruction fetch circuitry to retrieve instructions from storage by reference to addresses at which the instructions are stored;

    branch target storage to store entries comprising source and target addresses for branch instructions, wherein the branch target storage is capable of storing a confidence value associated with an entry and the branch target storage is responsive to a current address matching a source address in the entry and the confidence value exceeding a confidence threshold to issue a signal to the instruction fetch circuitry to retrieve a predicted next instruction from a target address in the entry; and

    branch confidence update circuitry to increase the confidence value of the entry in response to receipt of a confirmation of the target address and to decrease the confidence value of the entry in response to receipt of a non-confirmation of the target address,wherein the branch confidence update circuitry is responsive to the confidence value meeting a confidence lock threshold below the confidence threshold and receipt of the non-confirmation of the target address to trigger a locking mechanism with respect to the entry.

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