What are the techniques used to reduce branch cost?

Two easy ways to reduce the number of branches executed: If your architecture supports predicated instructions, then small if blocks can be generated with predicated instructions instead of branches. You can possibly ask your compiler to do this for you.

What is branch prediction schemes?

The branch prediction scheme used in a processor has a central impact on its execution. Therefore, some effort has been placed into promoting an effective scheme. A prediction can be a fixed or a true prediction. In a fixed prediction the same guess is continually made, either ‘taken’ or ‘not-taken’.

What is the difference between static and dynamic branch prediction?

g[2] Explain the difference between static and dynamic branch prediction? Static branch prediction makes fixed prediction of a branch to either taken or not taken; Dynamic branch prediction makes prediction based on previous history situation, by looking at history table.

What is dynamic branch prediction?

This says whether the branch was recently taken or not. Based on this, the processor fetches the next instruction from the target address / sequential address. If the prediction is wrong, flush the pipeline and also flip prediction. So, every time a wrong prediction is made, the prediction bit is flipped.

What is branch computer architecture?

A branch is an instruction in a computer program that can cause a computer to begin executing a different instruction sequence and thus deviate from its default behavior of executing instructions in order.

What is branch prediction in pipelining?

Branch prediction is a technique used in CPU design that attempts to guess the outcome of a conditional operation and prepare for the most likely result. A digital circuit that performs this operation is known as a branch predictor. It is an important component of modern CPU architectures, such as the x86.

What is branch prediction buffer?

Branch prediction buffers contain prediction about whether the next branch will be taken (T) or not (NT), but it does not supply the target PC value. A Branch Target Buffer (BTB) does this. Instr address Predicted PC. BTB is a cache that holds. (instr addr, predicted PC)

How does branch prediction help in processor performance?

Branch prediction is very important to the performance of a deeply pipelined processor. Branch prediction enables the processor to begin executing instructions long before the branch outcome is certain. Branch delay is the penalty that is incurred in the absence of a correct prediction.

What is delayed branch explain techniques for pipeline optimization?

The effect is to execute one or more instructions following the conditional branch before the branch is taken. This avoids stalling the pipeline while the branch condition is evaluated, thus keeping the pipeline full and minimizing the effect of conditional branches on processor performance.

How can branch prediction be improved?

One thing you can do in a high-level language is to eliminate branches by expressing the problem in terms of lookups or arithmetic. This helps branch prediction work better on the remaining branches, because there’s more “history” available. I’ve made huge performance improvements to bottleneck code with this approach.

What is branch prediction and speculative execution?

Branch prediction is done by the processor to try to determine where the execution will continue after a conditional jump, so that it can read the next instruction(s) from memory. Speculative execution goes one step further and determines what the result would be from executing the next instruction(s).

What are the two types of branch prediction techniques available?

Branch prediction technique can be of two types: Static Branch Prediction Technique. Dynamic Branch Prediction Technique.

What is meaning of delayed branch and branch prediction?

With delayed branching, the processor implements the add instruction first, but the branch will only be efficient later. Thus, in this example, delayed branching keep the initial execution sequence − add r1, r2, r3; b anywhere; anywhere: sub. It defines an unconditional branch.

Which types of instructions have branch delay slots?

Branch delay slots are found mainly in DSP architectures and older RISC architectures. MIPS, PA-RISC, ETRAX CRIS, SuperH, and SPARC are RISC architectures that each have a single branch delay slot; PowerPC, ARM, Alpha, and RISC-V do not have any.