SWAPPING BRANCH DIRECTION HISTORYIES IN RESPONSE TO A BRANCH PREDICTION TABLE SWAP INSTRUCTIONS AND RELATED SYSTEMS AND METHODS

摘要

Swapping branch direction history (s) in response to branch prediction table swap instruction (s), and related systems and methods are disclosed. In one embodiment, the branch history management circuitry is configured to process branch prediction table swap instructions. In response to the branch prediction table swap instruction, the branch history management circuit is configured to swap the previous branch direction history set allocated to the current software code area from the cache memory to a branch prediction table (BPT) for use in branch prediction. The current branch direction history set is swapped out of the BPT and stored in cache memory to avoid duplicate entries. In this way, branch direction history sets assigned to specific software code areas are used for branch prediction when processing specific software code areas. Thus, the instruction processing throughput and branch prediction accuracy of the instruction processing system are increased.;