A Comparison of Full and Partial Predicated Execution Support for ILP Processors

One can e ectively utilize predicated execution to improve branch handling in instruction-level parallel processors. Although the potential bene ts of predicated execution are high, the tradeo s involved in the design of an instruction set to support predicated execution can be di cult. On one end of the design spectrum, architectural support for full predicated execution requires increasing the number of source operands for all instructions. Full predicate support provides for the most exibility and the largest potential performance improvements. On the other end, partial predicated execution support, such as conditional moves, requires very little change to existing architectures. This paper presents a preliminary study to qualitatively and quantitatively address the bene t of full and partial predicated execution support. With our current compiler technology, we show that the compiler can use both partial and full predication to achieve speedup in large control-intensive programs. ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: ISCA
• Authors: Scott A. Mahlke, Richard E. Hank, James E. McCormick, David I. August, Wen-mei W. Hwu
• Keywords: Execution Support, Hardware, ISCA 1995, Partial Predicated Execution, Predicated Execution