anon (anon.delete@this.anon.com) on May 7, 2013 4:53 am wrote:
[...]
> I'm surprised there does not seem to be mention of any kind of cached decode work. It does not
> seem like there is a decoded instruction cache or loop buffer of any form (or can the instruction
> queue act as a loop buffer?). Is there any pre-decoding going on in the L1 icache?

Page 3 says this:
"The 32-entry instruction queue separates the front-end of the pipeline from the out-of-order machinery and also functions as a loop cache. When executing out of the loop cache, the entire front-end is clock gated to reduce power consumption."

> I'm surprised because A15 has a small loop buffer, even though most people seem to say that ARM decoders
> should be simpler than x86. And the Silvermont's decoders seem to be much more capable and parallel
> than previous Atom. Perhaps they have made some significant gains in x86 decoding efficiency?

cf the above quote: the loop buffer main interest is to decrease power consumption. The same applies to Cortex-A15.