Branch Prediction in Hardcaml for a RISC-V 32im CPU

TL;DR

This paper presents a hardware implementation of branch prediction for a RISC-V 32im CPU using Hardcaml, demonstrating static decode predictions and BATAGE, highlighting the integration of functional programming in hardware design.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hardware branch prediction approach for RV32IM CPUs implemented in Hardcaml, combining static and BATAGE techniques.

Findings

Effective branch prediction improves instruction throughput

Hardcaml facilitates hardware design in OCaml

Implementation details of BATAGE in RISC-V CPU

Abstract

Accurate branch prediction is a critical part of high performance instruction stream processing. In this paper, I present a hardware implementation of branch prediction for a RV32IM CPU, starting with static decode stage predictions and culminating in the use of BATAGE. In addition, I detail my experience writing the RTL in Hardcaml, a hardware description library for the functional programming language OCaml.