Delayed branches versus dynamic branch prediction in a high-performance superscalar architecture

While delayed branch mechanisms were popular with the designers of RISC processors, most superscalar processors deploy dynamic branch prediction to minimise run time branch penalties. We propose a generalised branch delay mechanism that is more suited to superscalar processors. We then quantitatively compare the performance of our delayed branch mechanism with run time branch prediction, in the context of a high performance superscalar architecture that uses aggressive compile time instruction scheduling.