Dynamic schemes for speculative execution of code

Abstract

Speculative execution of code is becoming a key technique for enhancing the performance of pipeline processors. We study schemes that predict the execution path of a program based on the history of branch executions. Building on previous work, we present a model for analyzing the effective speedup from pipelining using various schemes for speculative execution. We follow this with stochastic analyses of various speculative execution schemes. Finally, we conclude with simulations covering several of the settings we study.