In a recent interview with Mike Clark, it was mentioned that the upcoming Zen 6 will reflect foundational lift set by Zen 5. AMD’s Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster discussed Zen 5 being a ground-up redesign. The brand-new 2-Ahead Branch Predictor Unit in Zen 5 is a significant architectural enhancement based on decades-old papers. This enhancement addresses the challenges faced by processors in fetching and decoding instructions, making branch prediction critical. The complex process involves predicting branches efficiently to maximize performance. Zen 5’s implementation of the 2-Ahead Branch Predictor allows for predicting past two taken branches. This development marks a major advancement in CPU architecture that will shape future Zen core improvements.
https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/07/26/zen-5s-2-ahead-branch-predictor-unit-how-30-year-old-idea-allows-for-new-tricks/