Report Number: CSL-TR-77-131
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Sequential prefetch strategies for instructions and data
Author: Rau, B. Ramakrishna
Date: January 1977
Abstract: An investigation of sequential prefetch as a means of reducing the average access time is conducted. The use of a target instruction buffer is shown to enhance the performance of instruction prefetch. The concept of generalized sequentiality is developed to enable the study of sequentiality in data streams. Generalized sequentiality is shown to be present to a significant degree in data streams from measurements on representative programs. This results is utilized to develop a data prefetch mechanism which is found to be capable of anticipating, on the average, about 75% of all data requests.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/77/131/CSL-TR-77-131.pdf