CS insight

The performance of a processor is influenced by many factors. Branch prediction plays a decisive role in this. This technique is used by modern CPUs to speed up the execution of program code by predicting which path a program branch will take. What is Branch Prediction? Program code consists of a series of instructions that are executed in a specific order. However, sometimes there are branches where the execution can take different paths depending on certain conditions. An example of a branch is a conditional statement such as “if-else”, where depending on the fulfillment of a condition, either the code … Read more

“Single Instruction Multiple Data” (SIMD) refers to a type of parallel data processing in which a CPU or processor performs multiple identical operations on multiple data simultaneously. This method is often used when very large and similar amounts of data need to be processed efficiently. To visualize this in more detail, we can look at the example of vector addition. Normally, we would go through each element of the vectors individually and add them to get the result vector. In the code example, the implementation would look like this: It can be clearly seen that the operator is always the … Read more

Large Language Models (LLMs) are versatile. They also provide a significant increase in efficiency in software development. Here are five use cases for LLMs. 1. Writing small software blocks Often a software developer has to write short blocks of code that are not particularly complex, but necessary to guarantee the functionality of the software. However, writing these code blocks manually can take a lot of time. Fortunately, there is a remedy in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT. These models can use their ability to quickly and efficiently create code that is often even of good … Read more

This article explores why common if statements can significantly slow down execution time and how to counteract this. To better understand the origins of this phenomenon, a basic understanding of branch prediction is required. To improve the execution speed of code, the CPU uses what is known as pipelining to maximize pipeline utilization. However, this effect can be compromised by so-called pipeline flushes. To understand this issue in more detail, here is a brief example: The following program counts the number of numbers greater than 50. Since the numbers are generated using a random function and modulo 101, they are … Read more