Apparatus to dynamically control the out-of-order execution of load/store instructions in a processor capable of dispatchng, issuing and executing multiple instructions in a single processor cycle

摘要

An apparatus to dynamically controls the out-of-order execution of load/store instructions by detecting a store violation condition and avoiding the penalty of a pipeline recovery process. The apparatus permits a load and store instruction to issue and execute out of order and incorporates a unique store barrier cache which is used to dynamically predict whether or not a store violation condition is likely to occur and, if so, to restrict the issue of instructions to the load/store unit until the store instruction has been executed and it is once again safe to proceed with out-of-order execution. The method implemented by the apparatus delivers performance within one percent of theoretically possible with apriori knowledge of load and store addresses.