predication

Predication (also called branch predication ) is a process implemented in Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing ( EPIC )-based processor s and their compiler s to increase performance by eschewing branch prediction (a common technique used in modern processors), where a wrong guess by the processor brings a performance penalty. In predication, all the possible code branches are executed in parallel before the branch condition is proved. Applications like data mining and data warehousing that depend on large back-end database stand to gain the most from predicative methods.

Intel's IA-64 architecture is based on EPIC and the first processor in the IA-64 line, the Itanium , uses predication.

Last updated on: Sep 21, 2005

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