- •Contents
- •List of Tables
- •List of Figures
- •Preface
- •About this manual
- •Product revision status
- •Intended audience
- •Using this manual
- •Conventions
- •Additional reading
- •Feedback
- •Feedback on the product
- •Feedback on this book
- •Introduction
- •1.1 About the processor
- •1.2 Extensions to ARMv6
- •1.3 TrustZone security extensions
- •1.4.1 Instruction compression
- •1.4.2 The Thumb instruction set
- •1.4.3 Java bytecodes
- •1.5 Components of the processor
- •1.5.1 Integer core
- •1.5.2 Load Store Unit (LSU)
- •1.5.3 Prefetch unit
- •1.5.4 Memory system
- •1.5.5 AMBA AXI interface
- •1.5.6 Coprocessor interface
- •1.5.7 Debug
- •1.5.8 Instruction cycle summary and interlocks
- •1.5.9 System control
- •1.5.10 Interrupt handling
- •1.6 Power management
- •1.7 Configurable options
- •1.8 Pipeline stages
- •1.9 Typical pipeline operations
- •1.9.1 Instruction progression
- •1.10.1 Extended ARM instruction set summary
- •1.10.2 Thumb instruction set summary
- •1.11 Product revisions
- •Programmer’s Model
- •2.1 About the programmer’s model
- •2.2.1 TrustZone model
- •2.2.2 How the Secure model works
- •2.2.3 TrustZone write access disable
- •2.2.4 Secure Monitor bus
- •2.3 Processor operating states
- •2.3.1 Switching state
- •2.3.2 Interworking ARM and Thumb state
- •2.4 Instruction length
- •2.5 Data types
- •2.6 Memory formats
- •2.7 Addresses in a processor system
- •2.8 Operating modes
- •2.9 Registers
- •2.9.1 The ARM state core register set
- •2.9.2 The Thumb state core register set
- •2.9.3 Accessing high registers in Thumb state
- •2.9.4 ARM state and Thumb state registers relationship
- •2.10 The program status registers
- •2.10.1 The condition code flags
- •2.10.2 The Q flag
- •2.10.4 The GE[3:0] bits
- •2.10.7 The control bits
- •2.10.8 Modification of PSR bits by MSR instructions
- •2.10.9 Reserved bits
- •2.11 Additional instructions
- •2.11.1 Load or Store Byte Exclusive
- •2.11.2 Load or Store Halfword Exclusive
- •2.11.3 Load or Store Doubleword
- •2.11.4 CLREX
- •2.12 Exceptions
- •2.12.1 New instructions for exception handling
- •2.12.2 Exception entry and exit summary
- •2.12.3 Entering an ARM exception
- •2.12.4 Leaving an ARM exception
- •2.12.5 Reset
- •2.12.6 Fast interrupt request
- •2.12.7 Interrupt request
- •2.12.8 Low interrupt latency configuration
- •2.12.9 Interrupt latency example
- •2.12.10 Aborts
- •2.12.11 Imprecise Data Abort mask in the CPSR/SPSR
- •2.12.12 Supervisor call instruction
- •2.12.13 Secure Monitor Call (SMC)
- •2.12.14 Undefined instruction
- •2.12.15 Breakpoint instruction (BKPT)
- •2.12.16 Exception vectors
- •2.12.17 Exception priorities
- •2.13 Software considerations
- •2.13.1 Branch Target Address Cache flush
- •2.13.2 Waiting for DMA to complete
- •System Control Coprocessor
- •3.1 About the system control coprocessor
- •3.1.1 System control coprocessor functional groups
- •3.1.2 System control and configuration
- •3.1.3 MMU control and configuration
- •3.1.4 Cache control and configuration
- •3.1.5 TCM control and configuration
- •3.1.6 Cache Master Valid Registers
- •3.1.7 DMA control
- •3.1.8 System performance monitor
- •3.1.9 System validation
- •3.1.10 Use of the system control coprocessor
- •3.2 System control processor registers
- •3.2.1 Register allocation
- •3.2.2 c0, Main ID Register
- •3.2.3 c0, Cache Type Register
- •3.2.4 c0, TCM Status Register
- •3.2.5 c0, TLB Type Register
- •3.2.6 c0, CPUID registers
- •3.2.7 c1, Control Register
- •3.2.8 c1, Auxiliary Control Register
- •3.2.9 c1, Coprocessor Access Control Register
- •3.2.10 c1, Secure Configuration Register
- •3.2.11 c1, Secure Debug Enable Register
- •3.2.13 c2, Translation Table Base Register 0
- •3.2.14 c2, Translation Table Base Register 1
- •3.2.15 c2, Translation Table Base Control Register
- •3.2.16 c3, Domain Access Control Register
- •3.2.17 c5, Data Fault Status Register
- •3.2.18 c5, Instruction Fault Status Register
- •3.2.19 c6, Fault Address Register
- •3.2.20 c6, Watchpoint Fault Address Register
- •3.2.21 c6, Instruction Fault Address Register
- •3.2.22 c7, Cache operations
- •3.2.23 c8, TLB Operations Register
- •3.2.24 c9, Data and instruction cache lockdown registers
- •3.2.25 c9, Data TCM Region Register
- •3.2.26 c9, Instruction TCM Region Register
- •3.2.29 c9, TCM Selection Register
- •3.2.30 c9, Cache Behavior Override Register
- •3.2.31 c10, TLB Lockdown Register
- •3.2.32 c10, Memory region remap registers
- •3.2.33 c11, DMA identification and status registers
- •3.2.34 c11, DMA User Accessibility Register
- •3.2.35 c11, DMA Channel Number Register
- •3.2.36 c11, DMA enable registers
- •3.2.37 c11, DMA Control Register
- •3.2.38 c11, DMA Internal Start Address Register
- •3.2.39 c11, DMA External Start Address Register
- •3.2.40 c11, DMA Internal End Address Register
- •3.2.41 c11, DMA Channel Status Register
- •3.2.42 c11, DMA Context ID Register
- •3.2.44 c12, Monitor Vector Base Address Register
- •3.2.45 c12, Interrupt Status Register
- •3.2.46 c13, FCSE PID Register
- •3.2.47 c13, Context ID Register
- •3.2.48 c13, Thread and process ID registers
- •3.2.49 c15, Peripheral Port Memory Remap Register
- •3.2.51 c15, Performance Monitor Control Register
- •3.2.52 c15, Cycle Counter Register
- •3.2.53 c15, Count Register 0
- •3.2.54 c15, Count Register 1
- •3.2.55 c15, System Validation Counter Register
- •3.2.56 c15, System Validation Operations Register
- •3.2.57 c15, System Validation Cache Size Mask Register
- •3.2.58 c15, Instruction Cache Master Valid Register
- •3.2.59 c15, Data Cache Master Valid Register
- •3.2.60 c15, TLB lockdown access registers
- •Unaligned and Mixed-endian Data Access Support
- •4.2 Unaligned access support
- •4.2.1 Legacy support
- •4.2.2 ARMv6 extensions
- •4.2.3 Legacy and ARMv6 configurations
- •4.2.4 Legacy data access in ARMv6 (U=0)
- •4.2.5 Support for unaligned data access in ARMv6 (U=1)
- •4.2.6 ARMv6 unaligned data access restrictions
- •4.3 Endian support
- •4.3.1 Load unsigned byte, endian independent
- •4.3.2 Load signed byte, endian independent
- •4.3.3 Store byte, endian independent
- •4.4 Operation of unaligned accesses
- •4.5.1 Legacy fixed instruction and data endianness
- •4.5.3 Reset values of the U, B, and EE bits
- •4.6.1 All load and store operations
- •4.7 Instructions to change the CPSR E bit
- •Program Flow Prediction
- •5.1 About program flow prediction
- •5.2 Branch prediction
- •5.2.1 Enabling program flow prediction
- •5.2.2 Dynamic branch predictor
- •5.2.3 Static branch predictor
- •5.2.4 Branch folding
- •5.2.5 Incorrect predictions and correction
- •5.3 Return stack
- •5.4 Memory Barriers
- •5.4.1 Instruction Memory Barriers (IMBs)
- •5.5.1 Execution of IMB instructions
- •Memory Management Unit
- •6.1 About the MMU
- •6.2 TLB organization
- •6.2.1 MicroTLB
- •6.2.2 Main TLB
- •6.2.3 TLB control operations
- •6.2.5 Supersections
- •6.3 Memory access sequence
- •6.3.1 TLB match process
- •6.3.2 Virtual to physical translation mapping restrictions
- •6.4 Enabling and disabling the MMU
- •6.4.1 Enabling the MMU
- •6.4.2 Disabling the MMU
- •6.4.3 Behavior with MMU disabled
- •6.5 Memory access control
- •6.5.1 Domains
- •6.5.2 Access permissions
- •6.5.3 Execute never bits in the TLB entry
- •6.6 Memory region attributes
- •6.6.1 C and B bit, and type extension field encodings
- •6.6.2 Shared
- •6.6.3 NS attribute
- •6.7 Memory attributes and types
- •6.7.1 Normal memory attribute
- •6.7.2 Device memory attribute
- •6.7.3 Strongly Ordered memory attribute
- •6.7.4 Ordering requirements for memory accesses
- •6.7.5 Explicit Memory Barriers
- •6.7.6 Backwards compatibility
- •6.8 MMU aborts
- •6.8.1 External aborts
- •6.9 MMU fault checking
- •6.9.1 Fault checking sequence
- •6.9.2 Alignment fault
- •6.9.3 Translation fault
- •6.9.4 Access bit fault
- •6.9.5 Domain fault
- •6.9.6 Permission fault
- •6.9.7 Debug event
- •6.10 Fault status and address
- •6.11 Hardware page table translation
- •6.11.2 ARMv6 page table translation subpage AP bits disabled
- •6.11.3 Restrictions on page table mappings page coloring
- •6.12 MMU descriptors
- •Level One Memory System
- •7.1 About the level one memory system
- •7.2 Cache organization
- •7.2.1 Features of the cache system
- •7.2.2 Cache functional description
- •7.2.3 Cache control operations
- •7.2.4 Cache miss handling
- •7.2.5 Cache disabled behavior
- •7.2.6 Unexpected hit behavior
- •7.3.1 TCM behavior
- •7.3.2 Restriction on page table mappings
- •7.3.3 Restriction on page table attributes
- •7.5 TCM and cache interactions
- •7.5.1 Overlapping between TCM regions
- •7.5.2 DMA and core access arbitration
- •7.5.3 Instruction accesses to TCM
- •7.5.4 Data accesses to the Instruction TCM
- •7.6 Write buffer
- •Level Two Interface
- •8.1 About the level two interface
- •8.1.1 AXI parameters for the level 2 interconnect interfaces
- •8.2 Synchronization primitives
- •8.2.3 Example of LDREX and STREX usage
- •8.3 AXI control signals in the processor
- •8.3.1 Channel definition
- •8.3.2 Signal name suffixes
- •8.3.3 Address channel signals
- •8.4 Instruction Fetch Interface transfers
- •8.4.1 Cacheable fetches
- •8.4.2 Noncacheable fetches
- •8.5 Data Read/Write Interface transfers
- •8.5.1 Linefills
- •8.5.2 Noncacheable LDRB
- •8.5.3 Noncacheable LDRH
- •8.5.4 Noncacheable LDR or LDM1
- •8.5.5 Noncacheable LDRD or LDM2
- •8.5.6 Noncacheable LDM3
- •8.5.7 Noncacheable LDM4
- •8.5.8 Noncacheable LDM5
- •8.5.9 Noncacheable LDM6
- •8.5.10 Noncacheable LDM7
- •8.5.11 Noncacheable LDM8
- •8.5.12 Noncacheable LDM9
- •8.5.13 Noncacheable LDM10
- •8.5.14 Noncacheable LDM11
- •8.5.15 Noncacheable LDM12
- •8.5.16 Noncacheable LDM13
- •8.5.17 Noncacheable LDM14
- •8.5.18 Noncacheable LDM15
- •8.5.19 Noncacheable LDM16
- •8.6 Peripheral Interface transfers
- •8.7 Endianness
- •8.8 Locked access
- •Clocking and Resets
- •9.1 About clocking and resets
- •9.2 Clocking and resets with no IEM
- •9.2.1 Processor clocking with no IEM
- •9.2.2 Reset with no IEM
- •9.3 Clocking and resets with IEM
- •9.3.1 Processor clocking with IEM
- •9.3.2 Reset with IEM
- •9.4 Reset modes
- •9.4.1 Power-on reset
- •9.4.2 CP14 debug logic
- •9.4.3 Processor reset
- •9.4.4 DBGTAP reset
- •9.4.5 Normal operation
- •Power Control
- •10.1 About power control
- •10.2 Power management
- •10.2.1 Run mode
- •10.2.2 Standby mode
- •10.2.3 Shutdown mode
- •10.2.4 Dormant mode
- •10.2.5 Communication to the Power Management Controller
- •10.3 Intelligent Energy Management
- •10.3.1 Purpose of IEM
- •10.3.2 Structure of IEM
- •10.3.3 Operation of IEM
- •Coprocessor Interface
- •11.1 About the coprocessor interface
- •11.2 Coprocessor pipeline
- •11.2.1 Coprocessor instructions
- •11.2.2 Coprocessor control
- •11.2.3 Pipeline synchronization
- •11.2.4 Pipeline control
- •11.2.5 Instruction tagging
- •11.2.6 Flush broadcast
- •11.3 Token queue management
- •11.3.1 Queue implementation
- •11.3.2 Queue modification
- •11.3.3 Queue flushing
- •11.4 Token queues
- •11.4.1 Instruction queue
- •11.4.2 Length queue
- •11.4.3 Accept queue
- •11.4.4 Cancel queue
- •11.4.5 Finish queue
- •11.5 Data transfer
- •11.5.1 Loads
- •11.5.2 Stores
- •11.6 Operations
- •11.6.1 Normal operation
- •11.6.2 Cancel operations
- •11.6.3 Bounce operations
- •11.6.4 Flush operations
- •11.6.5 Retirement operations
- •11.7 Multiple coprocessors
- •11.7.1 Interconnect considerations
- •11.7.2 Coprocessor selection
- •11.7.3 Coprocessor switching
- •Vectored Interrupt Controller Port
- •12.1 About the PL192 Vectored Interrupt Controller
- •12.2 About the processor VIC port
- •12.2.1 Synchronization of the VIC port signals
- •12.2.2 Interrupt handler exit
- •12.3 Timing of the VIC port
- •12.3.1 PL192 VIC timing
- •12.3.2 Core timing
- •12.4 Interrupt entry flowchart
- •Debug
- •13.1 Debug systems
- •13.1.1 The debug host
- •13.1.2 The protocol converter
- •13.1.3 The processor
- •13.2 About the debug unit
- •13.2.3 Secure Monitor mode and debug
- •13.2.4 Virtual addresses and debug
- •13.2.5 Programming the debug unit
- •13.3 Debug registers
- •13.3.1 Accessing debug registers
- •13.3.2 CP14 c0, Debug ID Register (DIDR)
- •13.3.3 CP14 c1, Debug Status and Control Register (DSCR)
- •13.3.4 CP14 c5, Data Transfer Registers (DTR)
- •13.3.5 CP14 c6, Watchpoint Fault Address Register (WFAR)
- •13.3.6 CP14 c7, Vector Catch Register (VCR)
- •13.3.10 CP14 c112-c113, Watchpoint Control Registers (WCR)
- •13.3.11 CP14 c10, Debug State Cache Control Register
- •13.3.12 CP14 c11, Debug State MMU Control Register
- •13.4 CP14 registers reset
- •13.5 CP14 debug instructions
- •13.5.1 Executing CP14 debug instructions
- •13.6 External debug interface
- •13.7 Changing the debug enable signals
- •13.8 Debug events
- •13.8.1 Software debug event
- •13.8.2 External debug request signal
- •13.8.3 Halt DBGTAP instruction
- •13.8.4 Behavior of the processor on debug events
- •13.8.5 Effect of a debug event on CP15 registers
- •13.9 Debug exception
- •13.10 Debug state
- •13.10.1 Behavior of the PC in Debug state
- •13.10.2 Interrupts
- •13.10.3 Exceptions
- •13.11 Debug communications channel
- •13.12 Debugging in a cached system
- •13.12.1 Data cache writes
- •13.13 Debugging in a system with TLBs
- •13.14 Monitor debug-mode debugging
- •13.14.1 Entering the debug monitor target
- •13.14.2 Setting breakpoints, watchpoints, and vector catch debug events
- •13.14.3 Setting software breakpoint debug events (BKPT)
- •13.14.4 Using the debug communications channel
- •13.15 Halting debug-mode debugging
- •13.15.1 Entering Debug state
- •13.15.2 Exiting Debug state
- •13.15.3 Programming debug events
- •13.16 External signals
- •Debug Test Access Port
- •14.1 Debug Test Access Port and Debug state
- •14.2 Synchronizing RealView ICE
- •14.3 Entering Debug state
- •14.4 Exiting Debug state
- •14.5 The DBGTAP port and debug registers
- •14.6 Debug registers
- •14.6.1 Bypass register
- •14.6.2 Device ID code register
- •14.6.3 Instruction register
- •14.6.4 Scan chain select register (SCREG)
- •14.6.5 Scan chains
- •14.6.6 Reset
- •14.7 Using the Debug Test Access Port
- •14.7.1 Entering and leaving Debug state
- •14.7.2 Executing instructions in Debug state
- •14.7.3 Using the ITRsel IR instruction
- •14.7.4 Transferring data between the host and the core
- •14.7.5 Using the debug communications channel
- •14.7.6 Target to host debug communications channel sequence
- •14.7.7 Host to target debug communications channel
- •14.7.8 Transferring data in Debug state
- •14.7.9 Example sequences
- •14.8 Debug sequences
- •14.8.1 Debug macros
- •14.8.2 General setup
- •14.8.3 Forcing the processor to halt
- •14.8.4 Entering Debug state
- •14.8.5 Leaving Debug state
- •14.8.8 Reading the CPSR/SPSR
- •14.8.9 Writing the CPSR/SPSR
- •14.8.10 Reading the PC
- •14.8.11 Writing the PC
- •14.8.12 General notes about reading and writing memory
- •14.8.13 Reading memory as words
- •14.8.14 Writing memory as words
- •14.8.15 Reading memory as halfwords or bytes
- •14.8.16 Writing memory as halfwords/bytes
- •14.8.17 Coprocessor register reads and writes
- •14.8.18 Reading coprocessor registers
- •14.8.19 Writing coprocessor registers
- •14.9 Programming debug events
- •14.9.1 Reading registers using scan chain 7
- •14.9.2 Writing registers using scan chain 7
- •14.9.3 Setting breakpoints, watchpoints and vector traps
- •14.9.4 Setting software breakpoints
- •14.10 Monitor debug-mode debugging
- •14.10.1 Receiving data from the core
- •14.10.2 Sending data to the core
- •Trace Interface Port
- •15.1 About the ETM interface
- •15.1.1 Instruction interface
- •15.1.2 Secure control bus
- •15.1.3 Data address interface
- •15.1.4 Data value interface
- •15.1.5 Pipeline advance interface
- •15.1.6 Coprocessor interface
- •15.1.7 Other connections to the core
- •Cycle Timings and Interlock Behavior
- •16.1 About cycle timings and interlock behavior
- •16.1.1 Changes in instruction flow overview
- •16.1.2 Instruction execution overview
- •16.1.3 Conditional instructions
- •16.1.4 Opposite condition code checks
- •16.1.5 Definition of terms
- •16.2 Register interlock examples
- •16.3 Data processing instructions
- •16.3.1 Cycle counts if destination is not PC
- •16.3.2 Cycle counts if destination is the PC
- •16.3.3 Example interlocks
- •16.4 QADD, QDADD, QSUB, and QDSUB instructions
- •16.6 ARMv6 Sum of Absolute Differences (SAD)
- •16.6.1 Example interlocks
- •16.7 Multiplies
- •16.8 Branches
- •16.9 Processor state updating instructions
- •16.10 Single load and store instructions
- •16.10.1 Base register update
- •16.11 Load and Store Double instructions
- •16.12 Load and Store Multiple Instructions
- •16.12.1 Load and Store Multiples, other than load multiples including the PC
- •16.12.2 Load Multiples, where the PC is in the register list
- •16.12.3 Example Interlocks
- •16.13 RFE and SRS instructions
- •16.14 Synchronization instructions
- •16.15 Coprocessor instructions
- •16.16 SVC, SMC, BKPT, Undefined, and Prefetch Aborted instructions
- •16.17 No operation
- •16.18 Thumb instructions
- •AC Characteristics
- •17.1 Processor timing diagrams
- •17.2 Processor timing parameters
- •Signal Descriptions
- •A.1 Global signals
- •A.2 Static configuration signals
- •A.3 TrustZone internal signals
- •A.4 Interrupt signals, including VIC interface
- •A.5 AXI interface signals
- •A.5.1 Instruction read port signals
- •A.5.2 Data port signals
- •A.5.3 Peripheral port signals
- •A.5.4 DMA port signals
- •A.6 Coprocessor interface signals
- •A.7 Debug interface signals, including JTAG
- •A.8 ETM interface signals
- •A.9 Test signals
- •B.1 About the differences between the ARM1136J-S and ARM1176JZ-S processors
- •B.2 Summary of differences
- •B.2.1 TrustZone
- •B.2.2 ARMv6k extensions support
- •B.2.3 Power management
- •B.2.4 SmartCache
- •B.2.7 Tightly-Coupled Memories
- •B.2.8 Fault Address Register
- •B.2.9 Fault Status Register
- •B.2.10 Prefetch Unit
- •B.2.11 System control coprocessor operations
- •B.2.13 Debug
- •B.2.14 Level two interface
- •B.2.15 Memory BIST
- •Revisions
- •Glossary
Program Flow Prediction
5.2Branch prediction
In ARM processors that have no PU, the target of a branch is not known until the end of the Execute stage. At the Execute stage it is known whether or not the branch is taken. The best performance is obtained by predicting all branches as not taken and filling the pipeline with the instructions that follow the branch in the current sequential path. In ARM processors without a PU, an untaken branch requires one cycle and a taken branch requires three or more cycles.
Branch prediction enables the detection of branch instructions before they enter the integer core. This permits the use of a branch prediction scheme that closely models actual conditional branch behavior.
The increased pipeline length of the ARM1176JZ-S processor makes the performance penalty of any changes in program flow, such as branches or other updates to the PC, more significant than was the case on the ARM9TDMI or ARM1020T processors. Therefore, a significant amount of hardware is dedicated to prediction of these changes. Two major classes of program flow are addressed in the ARM1176JZ-S prediction scheme:
1.Branches, including BL, and BLX immediate, where the target address is a fixed offset from the program counter. The prediction amounts to an examination of the probability that a branch passes its condition codes. These branches are handled in the Branch Predictors.
2.Loads, Moves, and ALU operations writing to the PC, that can be identified as being likely to be a return from a procedure call. Two identifiable cases are Loads to the PC from an address derived from R13, the stack pointer, and Moves or ALU operations to the PC derived from R14, the Link Register. In these cases, if the calling operation can also be identified, the likely return address can be stored in a hardware implemented stack, termed a Return Stack (RS). Typical calling operations are BL and BLX instructions. In addition Moves or ALU operations to the Link Register from the PC are often preludes to a branch that serves as a calling operation. The Link Register value derived is the value required for the RS. This was most commonly done on ARMv4T, before the BLX <register> instruction was introduced in ARMv5T.
Branch prediction is required in the design to reduce the integer core CPI loss that arises from the longer pipeline. To improve the branch prediction accuracy, a combination of static and dynamic techniques is employed. It is possible to disable each of the predictors separately.
5.2.1Enabling program flow prediction
The enabling of program flow prediction is controlled by the CP15 Register c1 Z bit, bit 11, that is set to 0 on Reset. See c1, Control Register on page 3-44. The return stack, dynamic predictor, and static predictor can also be individually controlled using the Auxiliary Control Register. See c1, Auxiliary Control Register on page 3-49.
5.2.2Dynamic branch predictor
The first line of branch prediction in the processor is dynamic, through a simple BTAC. It is virtually addressed and holds virtual target addresses. In addition, a two bit value holds the prediction history of the branch. If the address mappings change, this cache must be flushed. A dynamic branch predictor flush is included in the CP15 coprocessor control instructions. Also included are direct dynamic branch predictor flush from main TLB and integer core.
A BTAC works by storing the existence of branches at particular locations in memory. The branch target address and a prediction of whether or not it might be taken is also stored.
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Program Flow Prediction
The BTAC provides dynamic prediction of branches, including BL and BLX instructions in both ARM, Thumb, and Jazelle states. The BTAC is a 128-entry direct-mapped cache structure used for allocation of Branch Target Addresses for resolved branches. The BTAC uses a 2-bit saturating prediction history scheme to provide the dynamic branch prediction. When a branch has been allocated into the BTAC, it is only evicted in the case of a capacity clash. That is, by another branch at the same index.
The prediction is based on the previous behavior of this branch. The four possible states of the prediction bits are:
•strongly predict branch taken
•weakly predict branch taken
•weakly predict branch not taken
•strongly predict branch not taken.
The history is updated for each occurrence of the branch. This updating is scheduled by the integer core when the branch has been resolved.
Branch entries are allocated into the BTAC after having been resolved at Execute. BTAC hits enable branch prediction with zero cycle delay. When a BTAC hit occurs, the Branch Target Address stored in the BTAC is used as the Program Counter for the next Fetch. Both branches resolved taken and not taken are allocated into the BTAC. This enables the BTAC to do the most useful amount of work and improves performance for tight backward branching loops.
5.2.3Static branch predictor
The second level of branch prediction in the processor uses static branch prediction that is based solely on the characteristics of a branch instruction. It does not make use of any history information. The scheme used in the ARM1176JZ-S processor predicts that all forward conditional branches are not taken and all backward branches are taken. Around 65% of all branches are preceded by enough non-branch cycles to be completely predicted.
Branch prediction is performed only when the Z bit in CP15 Register c1 is set to 1. See c1, Control Register on page 3-44 for details of this register. Dynamic prediction works on the basis of caching the previously seen branches in the BTAC, and like all caches suffers from the compulsory miss that exists on the first encountering of the branch by the predictor. A second static predictor is added to the design to counter these misses, and to deal with any capacity and conflict misses in the BTAC. The static predictor amounts to an early evaluation of branches in the pipeline, combined with a predictor based on the direction of the branches to handle the evaluation of condition codes that are not known at the time of the handling of these branches. Only items that have not been predicted in the dynamic predictor are handled by the static predictor.
The static branch predictor is hard-wired with backward branches being predicted as taken, and forward branches as not taken. The SBP looks at the MSB of the branch offset to determine the branch direction. Statically predicted taken branches incur a one-cycle delay before the target instructions start refilling the pipeline. The SBP works in both ARM and Thumb states. The SBP does not function in Jazelle state.
5.2.4Branch folding
Branch folding is a technique where, on the prediction of most branches, the branch instruction is completely removed from the instruction stream presented to the execution pipeline. Branch folding can significantly improve the performance of branches, taking the CPI for branches significantly lower than 1.
Branch folding only operates in ARM and Thumb states.
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Program Flow Prediction
Branch folding is done for all dynamically predicted branches, except that branch folding is not done for:
•BL and BLX instructions, to avoid losing the link
•predicted branches onto branches
•branches that are breakpointed or have generated an abort when fetched.
5.2.5Incorrect predictions and correction
Branches are resolved at or before the Ex3 stage of the integer core pipeline. A misprediction causes the pipeline to be flushed, and the correct instruction stream to be fetched. If branch folding is implemented, the failure of the condition codes of a folded branch causes the instruction that follows the folded branch to fail. Whenever a potentially incorrect prediction is made, the following information, necessary for recovering from the error, is stored:
•a fall-through address in the case of a predicted taken branch instruction
•the branch target address in the case of a predicted not taken branch instruction.
The PU passes the conditional part of any optimized branch into the integer core. This enables the integer core to compare these bits with the processor flags and determine if the prediction was correct or not. If the prediction was incorrect, the integer core flushes the PU and requests that prefetching begins from the stored recovery address.
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