Patent Document ID: 9389868
Application ID: 13666407
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method comprising: determining that a first instruction instance is a first branch instruction instance; responsive to determining that the first instruction instance is the first branch instruction instance, obtaining a first branch prediction for the first branch instruction instance and a first confidence value of the first branch prediction; determining a first confidence level for the first branch prediction based on the first confidence value; responsive to determining that the first confidence level is low: fetching one or more instructions of a first instruction execution path and one or more instructions of a second instruction execution path, the first instruction execution path and the second instruction execution path associated with the first branch instruction instance; and converting the one or more instructions of the first instruction execution path and the one or more instructions of the second instruction execution path to predicated instruction instances, wherein converting comprises one member of the group consisting of: adding a first predicate to each of the one or more instructions of the first instruction execution path and adding a second predicate to each of the one or more instructions of the second instruction execution path; and inserting selection instructions between each of the one or more instructions of the first instruction execution path and inserting selection instructions between each of the one or more instructions of the second instruction execution path; and responsive to determining that the first confidence level is high: fetching one or more instructions of a predicted instruction execution path.