hard-ware prefetching

[Attilio Rao]

2006/10/16, ranjith kumar <ranjith_kumar_b4u at yahoo.com>:
> Hi everyone,
>             I am new to this mailing list.
>
>
> I have just started reading about architectural
> features of "pentium-4".
>
> I have following questions:
>
> 1) I have read "IA-32 software developers manuals".
>   No information has been given about hardware
> prefetching.
>   Can anyone suggest some material which explains
> more details about "hardware prefetching" (pentium4 if
> possible).

You have to look at this:
http://www.intel.com/design/Pentium4/documentation.htm#manuals

and possibly give a look at the "Pentium 4 optimizations manual".

BTW, even if I'm not aware of what informations do you need about
prefetching, P4 offers prefetch[n]-nta instructions that you can find
in the "IA32 Architecture Manual, vol 2". Prefetching can be emulated
in someway... but it needs a better explanatory here.

> 2) This is a non-technical question.
>  Does Intel company reveals all details about its
> processors(say pentium-4) like what is the exact
> dynamic branching algorithm used to predict
> conditional branches...etc?

You can find some descriptions in every good book about computer
architectures...

Attilio


-- 
Peace can only be achieved by understanding - A. Einstein