Patent ID: 7870371

Claim:
A system to facilitate processing in a computing environment, comprising: a prediction engine table including data representative of N targets of an indirect jump, N a positive integer, and a frequency counter associated with each target; a program counter; a global branch history register; XOR logic configured to XOR the program counter with the global branch history register, to form an index into the prediction engine table; a target selection mechanism configured to compare the frequency counters and select a target of the N targets associated with a highest frequency counter value; and a hit detection mechanism configured to query the prediction engine table using the index, and if the hit detection mechanism detects that there is an entry in the prediction engine table associated with at least a program context, predict the target associated with the highest frequency counter value as the target of the indirect jump, or if the hit detection mechanism does not detect that there is an entry in the prediction engine table associated with at least a program context, use branch target buffer prediction to predict the target of the indirect jump, or stall until the indirect jump is executed.