RISC-V Design · All levels

Branch Handling, Pipeline Flush, and Redirect Timing: Design Space

Design Space for Branch Handling, Pipeline Flush, and Redirect Timing.

Design space

Design Space for Branch Handling, Pipeline Flush, and Redirect Timing is anchored on Branch mispredict penalty in cycles, wrong-path retire count (target zero), and redirect latency from resolve to fetch restart.. Convert observations into mechanism-backed decisions with explicit ownership.

  • Trade latency and throughput against power and area.

  • Prefer architecture options with clear software contract impact.

  • Quantify extension-profile cost before enabling by default.

  • Keep bring-up and validation ownership explicit.

Trend lens

diagram
BEFORE / AFTER TREND - Branch Handling, Pipeline Flush, and Redirect Timing

Branch mispredict penalty in cycles, wrong-path retire count (target zero), and redirect latency from resolve to fetch restart.
  ^
  |                           o target band
  |                    o after fix + reruns
  |             o
  |      o baseline (failing)
  +--------------------------------------------------> iteration
       capture issue      isolate mechanism      close + monitor

Use this view to confirm the gain is causal and stable across seeds.