A study of branch prediction strategies

In high-performance computer systems. performance losses due to conditional branch instructrons can be minrmized by predicting a branch outcome and fetching, decoding, and/or issuing subsequent instructions before the actual outcome is known. This paper discusses branch prediction strategies wrth the goal of maxtmizing prediction accuracy. First. currently used techniques are discussed and analyzed using instruction tmce data. Then, new techniques are proposed and are shown to provide greater accuracy and more flexibility at low cost.