Slipstream Processors Revisited: Exploiting Branch Sets

Delinquent branches and loads remain key performance limiters in some applications. One approach to mitigate them is pre-execution. Broadly, there are two classes of pre-execution: one class repeatedly forks small helper threads, each targeting an individual dynamic instance of a delinquent branch or load; the other class begins with two redundant threads in a leader-follower arrangement, and speculatively reduces the leading thread. The objective of this paper is to design a new pre-execution microarchitecture that meets four criteria: (i) retains the simpler coordination of a leader-follower microarchitecture, (ii) is fully automated with just hardware, (iii) targets both branches and loads, (iv) and is effective. We review prior preexecution proposals and show that none of them meet all four criteria. We develop Slipstream 2.0 to meet all four criteria. The key innovation in the space of leader-follower architectures is to remove the forward control-flow slices of delinquent branches and loads, from the leading thread. This innovation overcomes key limitations in the only other hardware-only leader-follower prior works: Slipstream and Dual Core Execution (DCE). Slipstream removes backward slices of confident branches to pre-execute unconfident branches, which is ineffective in phases dominated by unconfident branches when branch pre-execution is most needed. DCE is very effective at tolerating cache-missed loads, unless their dependent branches are mispredicted. Removing forward control-flow slices of delinquent branches and delinquent loads enables two firsts, respectively: (1) leader-follower-style branch pre-execution without relying on confident instruction removal, and (2) tolerance of cache-missed loads that feed mispredicted branches. For SPEC 2006/2017 SimPoints wherein Slipstream 2.0 is auto-enabled, it achieves geomean speedups of 67%, 60%, and 12%, over baseline (one core), Slipstream, and DCE.