Generating prefetches by speculatively executing code through hardware scout threading

摘要

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that generates prefetches by speculatively executing code during stalls through a technique known as "hardware scout threading." The system starts by executing code within a processor. Upon encountering a stall, the system speculatively executes the code from the point of the stall, without committing results of the speculative execution to the architectural state of the processor. If the system encounters a memory reference during this speculative execution, the system determines if a target address for the memory reference can be resolved. If so, the system issues a prefetch for the memory reference to load a cache line for the memory reference into a cache within the processor.