Prediction of indirect branches

摘要

Methods and predictor logic units for indirect branches for predicting the target addresses of indirect branch instructions. The method includes storing, in a table, predicted destination addresses for indirect branch instructions indexed with a combination of the indirect path history for previous indirect branch instructions and the taken / not taken history for previous conditional branch instructions. When a new indirect branch instruction is received for prediction, the history of the indirect path and the taken / not taken history are combined to produce an index for the indirect branch instruction. The generated index is then used to identify a predicted destination address in the table. If the identified predicted destination address is valid, the destination address of the indirect branch instruction is predicted to be the predicted destination address.