Electrical computers and digital processing systems: processing – Processing control – Branching
Patent
1997-12-16
2000-01-18
An, Meng-Al T.
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: processing
Processing control
Branching
712 23, 712233, 712237, 711125, 711128, G06F 938
Patent
active
060165456
ABSTRACT:
A microprocessor stores cache-line-related data (e.g. branch predictions or predecode data, in the illustrated embodiments) in a storage which includes fewer storage locations than the number of cache lines in the instruction cache. Each storage location in the storage is mappable to multiple cache lines, any one of which can be associated with the data stored in the storage location. The storage may thereby be smaller than a storage which provides an equal number of storage locations as the number of cache lines in the instruction cache. Access time to the storage may be reduced, therefore providing for a higher frequency implementation. Still further, semiconductor substrate area occupied by the storage may be decreased. In one embodiment, the storage is indexed by a subset of the index bits used to index the instruction cache. The subset comprises the least significant bits of the cache index. In other words, the cache lines which share a particular storage location within the storage differ in the most significant cache index bits. Therefore, code which exhibits spatial locality may experience little conflict for the storage locations.
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Mahalingaiah Rupaka
McBride Andrew
Tran Thang M.
Advanced Micro Devices , Inc.
An Meng-Al T.
El-Hady Nabil
Merkel Lawrence J.
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