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