Report Number: CSL-TR-89-383
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Super-Scalar Processor Design
Author: Johnson, William M.
Date: June 1989
Abstract: A super-scalar processor is one that is capable of sustaining an instruction-execution rate of more than one instruction per clock cycle. Maintaining this execution rate is primarily a problem of scheduling processor resources (such as functional units) for high utilization. A number of scheduling algorithms have been published, with wide-ranging claims of performance over the single-instruction issue of a scalar processor. However, a number of these claims are based on idealizations or on special-purpose applications. This study uses trace-driven simulation to evaluate many different super-scalar hardware organizations. Super-scalar performance is limited primarily by instruction-fetch inefficiencies caused by both branch delays and instruction misalignment. Because of this instruction-fetch limitation, it is not worthwhile to explore highly-concurrent execution hardware. Rather, it is more appropriate to explore economical execution hardware that more closely matches the instruction throughput provided by the instruction fetcher. This study examines techniques for reducing the instruction-fetch inefficiencies and explores the resulting hardware organizations. This study concludes that a super-scalar processor can have nearly twice the performance of a scalar processor, but that this requires that four major hardware features: out-of-order execution, register renaming, branch prediction, and a four-instruction decoder. These features are interdependent, and removing any single feature reduces average performance by 18% or more. However, there are many hardware simplifications that cause only a small performance reduction.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/89/383/CSL-TR-89-383.pdf