Performance Issues of a Superscalar Microprocessor

Cache, dynamic scheduling, bypassing, branch prediction, and fetch efficiency are primary issues concerning performance of a superscalar microprocessor. This paper considers all these issues and shows their impact on performance by running our simulator on seventeen different programs. Our approach in handling branch prediction is shown to significantly decrease the bad branch penalty. Furthermore, results show that the average instruction fetch places an upper bound on speedup and is the most critical factor in determining overall performance. Its performance impact is greater than all other factors combined.