Patent ID: 7383402
Filing Date: 2008-06-03
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: selecting a particular one of one or more chains of indirect memory accesses corresponding to a procedure, wherein each of said one or more chains comprises at least a respective head memory access that does not depend for its memory address computation on another prefetch candidate memory access within said procedure and one or more indirect memory accesses that depend for their respective memory address computations either directly or indirectly on said respective head memory access; determining a prefetch-ahead value for said particular chain; generating a load operation corresponding to said head memory access of said particular chain that specifies a target memory address that is dependent upon both said prefetch-ahead value and a memory address of said head memory access; and for a terminal indirect memory access included in said particular chain, generating a respective prefetch operation that is dependent for its memory address computation on results of one or more preceding generated load operations in the same manner as its corresponding terminal indirect memory access depends upon one or more preceding memory accesses in said particular chain.