The Minor and o3 cpu models share the branch prediction
code. Minor relies on the BPredUnit::squash() function
to update the branch predictor tables on a branch mispre-
diction. This is fine because Minor executes in-order, so
the update is on the correct path. However, this causes the
branch predictor to be updated on out-of-order branch
mispredictions when using the o3 model, which should not
be the case.
This patch guards against speculative update of the branch
prediction tables. On a branch misprediction, BPredUnit::squash()
calls BpredUnit::update(..., squashed = true). The underlying
branch predictor tests against the value of squashed. If it is
true, it restores any speculatively updated internal state
it might have (e.g., global/local branch history), then returns.
If false, it updates its prediction tables. Previously, exist-
ing predictors did not test against the "squashed" parameter.
To accomodate for this change, the Minor model must now call
BPredUnit::squash() then BPredUnit::update(..., squashed = false)
on branch mispredictions. Before, calling BpredUnit::squash()
performed the prediction tables update.
The effect is a slight MPKI improvement when using the o3
model. A further patch should perform the same modifications
for the indirect target predictor and BTB (less critical).
Signed-off-by: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
The tournament predictor is presented as doing speculative
update of the global history and non-speculative update
of the local history used to generate the branch prediction.
However, the code does speculative update of both histories.
Signed-off-by: Jason Lowe-Power <jason@lowepower.com>
This patch adds a configurable indirect branch predictor that can be indexed
by a combination of GHR and path history hashes. Implements the functionality
described in:
"Target prediction for indirect jumps" by Chang, Hao, and Patt
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=264209
This is a re-spin of fb9d142 after the revert (bd1c6789).
The following patches had unexpected interactions with the current
upstream code and have been reverted for now:
e07fd01651f3: power: Add support for power models
831c7f2f9e39: power: Low-power idle power state for idle CPUs
4f749e00b667: power: Add power states to ClockedObject
Signed-off-by: Andreas Sandberg <andreas.sandberg@arm.com>
--HG--
extra : amend_source : 0b6fb073c6bbc24be533ec431eb51fbf1b269508
This patch adds a configurable indirect branch predictor that can be indexed
by a combination of GHR and path history hashes. Implements the functionality
described in:
"Target prediction for indirect jumps" by Chang, Hao, and Patt
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=264209
When a branch gets squashed, it's speculative branch predictor state should get
rolled back in squash(). However, only the globalHistory state was being
rolled back. This patch adds (at least some) support for rolling back the
local predictor state also.
Committed by: Nilay Vaish <nilay@cs.wisc.edu>
When a branch mispredicted gem5 would squash all history after and including
the mispredicted branch. However, the mispredicted branch is still speculative
and its history is required to rollback state if another, older, branch
mispredicts. This leads to things like RAS corruption.
having separate params for the local/globalHistoryBits and the
local/globalPredictorSize can lead to inconsistencies if they
are not carefully set. this patch dervies the number of bits
necessary to index into the local/global predictors based on
their size.
the value of the localHistoryTableSize for the ARM O3 CPU has been
increased to 1024 from 64, which is more accurate for an A15 based
on some correlation against A15 hardware.
This patch moves the branch predictor files in the o3 and inorder directories
to src/cpu/pred. This allows sharing the branch predictor across different
cpu models.
This patch was originally posted by Timothy Jones in July 2010
but never made it to the repository.
--HG--
rename : src/cpu/o3/bpred_unit.cc => src/cpu/pred/bpred_unit.cc
rename : src/cpu/o3/bpred_unit.hh => src/cpu/pred/bpred_unit.hh
rename : src/cpu/o3/bpred_unit_impl.hh => src/cpu/pred/bpred_unit_impl.hh
rename : src/cpu/o3/sat_counter.hh => src/cpu/pred/sat_counter.hh
globalHistoryBits, globalPredictorSize, and choicePredictorSize are decoupled.
globalHistoryBits controls how much history is kept, global and choice
predictor sizes control how much of that history is used when accessing
predictor tables. This way, global and choice predictors can actually be
different sizes, and it is no longer possible to walk off the predictor arrays
and cause a seg fault.
There are now individual thresholds for choice, global, and local saturating
counters, so that taken/not taken decisions are correct even when the
predictors' counters' sizes are different.
The interface for localPredictorSize has been removed from TournamentBP because
the value can be calculated from localHistoryBits.
Committed by: Nilay Vaish <nilay@cs.wisc.edu>
1. Updates the Branch Predictor correctly to the state
just after a mispredicted branch, if a squash occurs.
2. If a BTB does not find an entry, the branch is predicted not taken.
The global history is modified to correctly reflect this prediction.
3. Local history is now updated at the fetch stage instead of
execute stage.
4. In the Update stage of the branch predictor the local predictors are
now correctly updated according to the state of local history during
fetch stage.
This patch also improves performance by as much as 17% on some benchmarks
Branch predictor could not predict a branch in a nested loop because:
1. The global history was not updated after a mispredict squash.
2. The global history was updated in the fetch stage. The choice predictors
that were updated used the changed global history. This is incorrect, as
it incorporates the state of global history after the branch in
encountered. Fixed update to choice predictor using the global history
state before the branch happened.
3. The global predictor table was also updated using the global history state
before the branch happened as above.
Additionally, parameters to initialize ctr and history size were reversed.
Suppose the saturating counters of a branch predictor contain n bits. When the
counter is between 0 and (2^(n-1) - 1), boundaries included, the branch is
predicted as not taken. When the counter is between 2^(n-1) and (2^n - 1),
boundaries included, the branch is predicted as taken.
