Reply To: The Belt

Hi Will,

Unless I’ve misunderstood something meaningful because the videos weren’t too clear, how is it really any different from how a typical load/store CPU works? That is: when you do a branch in a load/store CPU, you know (as the compiler writer) what’s stored where for registers as of the time of the branch: it’s no different with the Mill Belt, and unless I’m mistaken, the Belt doesn’t move merely because of the branch.

That’s not to say that there aren’t instructions in-flight that need to be accounted for: but that’s not really any different from no branch, because the compiler knows exactly how much is in-flight as well, as it’s 100% deterministic, even if there are pipeline stalls from cache misses.