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Branch Prediction And The Last Iteration Problem

6 questions · ~5 min · intermediate

Six questions on how branch predictors work, why the last iteration of a loop is structurally mispredicted, and how modern designs like TAGE and loop predictors try to compensate.

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A for loop runs exactly 1000 iterations on every call. The branch predictor uses a 2-bit saturating counter. How many mispredictions occur per call once the predictor is warmed up?

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