The majority of currently available branch predictors base their prediction accuracy on the previous k branch outcomes. Such predictors sustain high prediction accuracy but they do not consider the impact of unbiased branches which are difficult-to-predict. In this paper, we quantify and evaluate the impact of unbiased branches and show that any gain in prediction accuracy is proportional to the frequency of unbiased branches. By using the SPECcpu2000 integer benchmarks we show that there are a significant proportion of unbiased branches which severely impact on prediction accuracy (averaging between 6% and 24% depending on the prediction context used).
While delayed branch mechanisms were popular with the designers of RISC processors, most superscalar processors deploy dynamic branch prediction to minimise run-time branch penalties. We propose a generalised branch delay mechanism that is more suited to superscalar processors. We then quantitatively compare the performance of our delayed branch mechanism with run-time branch prediction, in the context of a high-performance superscalar architecture that uses aggressive compile-time instruction scheduling. keywords superscalar, delayed branch, branch prediction, instruction scheduling
Abstract. The majority of currently available dynamic branch predictors base their prediction accuracy on the previous k branch outcomes. Such predictors sustain high prediction accuracy but they do not consider the impact of unbiased branches, which are difficult-to-predict. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of unbiased branches in terms of prediction accuracy on a range of branch difference predictors using prediction by partial matching, multiple Markov prediction and neural-based prediction. Since our focus is on the impact that unbiased branches have on processor performance, timing issues and hardware costs are out of scope of this investigation. Our simulation results, with the SPEC2000 integer benchmark suite, are interesting even though they show that unbiased branches still restrict the ceiling of branch prediction and therefore accurately predicting unbiased branches remains an open problem.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.