| 摘要 |
<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To manage a return stack for multi-level procedures. <P>SOLUTION: A processor includes a return stack circuit used for predicting procedure return addresses for instruction pre-fetching, wherein a return stack controller determines the number of return levels associated with a given return instruction, and pops that number of return addresses from the return stack, to pre-fetch the return address of the original calling procedure in a chain of successive procedure calls. The return stack controller reads the number of return levels from a value embedded in the return instruction. A complementary compiler calculates the return level values for given return instructions and embeds those values in the return instructions at compile time. The return stack circuit dynamically tracks the number of return levels by counting the procedure calls (branches) in a chain of successive procedure calls. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2012,JPO&INPIT |
