
15-34
x86 MICROPROCESSORS
Table 15.3 shows the example of our daily travel and this can be used to illustrate a two-
bit predictor. Note that a wrong decision occurs only once; that is, on a Sunday. This
is because on that day, the two previous history bits were TT, but the actual is N. On
Monday, the history changes to TN, but the prediction still is T. (Only if two Ns occur
together, will the prediction change to N).
It seems obvious that we can use more history bits for better prediction. However,
in practice, it has been found that two-bit predictors perform well enough. For more
advanced processors, there are better predictors that trace ...