Mill Computing, Inc. Forums The Mill Architecture Prediction Reply To: Prediction

Ivan Godard
Post count: 627

Predictions load only if we have no prediction for the call, and the loading is in parallel with the miss processing, so it will necessarily result in faster execution than simply missing and building up experience without loading.

The prediction table holds the target address of a prediction as an offset from the entry address of the caller EBB (the same addressing that branch/call uses). The offsets are within a single load module, which has bounded size much smaller than the total address space; that way we need only 20-30 bits per address in the table, rather than 60 bits for an arbitrary address.

In contrast, portals may be set up anywhere in the global address space, and so would need more bits in the prediction. We expect portal calls to be rare compared to ordinary calls, so we economize on table space and wires and don’t try to predict portal calls.