STR910FAM32X6 datasheet(8/78 Pages) STMICROELECTRONICS

8 / 78 page

Functional overview

STR91xFA

8/78

2.4.2

Branch Cache (BC)

When instruction addresses are not sequential, such as a program branch situation, the PFQ

would have to flush and reload which would cause the CPU to stall if no BC were present.

Before reloading, the PFQ checks the BC to see if it contains the desired target branch

address. The BC contains up to fifteen of the most recently taken branch addresses and the

first eight instructions associated with each of these branches. This check is extremely fast,

checking all fifteen BC entries simultaneously for a branch address match (cache hit). If there is

a hit, the BC rapidly supplies the instruction and reduces the CPU stall. This gives the PFQ time

to start pre-fetching again while the CPU consumes these eight instructions from the BC. The

advantage here is that program loops (very common with embedded control applications) run

very fast if the address of the loops are contained in the BC.

In addition, there is a 16th branch cache entry that is dedicated to the Vectored Interrupt

Controller (VIC) to further reduce interrupt latency by eliminating the stall latency typically

imposed by fetching the instruction that reads the interrupt vector address from the VIC.

2.4.3

Management of literals

Typical ARM architecture and compilers do not place literals (data constants) sequentially in

Flash memory with the instructions that use them, but instead the literals are placed at some

other address which looks like a program branch from the PFQ’s point of view. The STR91xFA

implementation of the ARM966E-S core has special circuitry to prevent flushing the PFQ when

literals are encountered in program flow to keep performance at a maximum.

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