(JTB) A feature of some pipelined processors (e.g. Amulet,
Pentium?) which stores the source and destination addresses
of the last few branch instuctions executed. When a branch
instruction is fetched, its source is looked for in the JTB.
If found, the next instuction fetch will be from the previous
destination of that branch. If it turns out that the branch
shouldn't have been taken this time, then the pipeline is
flushed. This means that in a tight loop it is not
necessary to flush the pipeline every time you jump back to
the start.
(1994-12-15)
Nearby terms:
jump « jumper « jump off into never-never land « jump trace buffer » Junction FET » Junction Field Effect Transistor » Juno
