Compiler Transformation to Eliminate Branches
Published:Dec 26, 2025 21:32
•1 min read
•ArXiv
Analysis
This paper addresses the performance bottleneck of branch mispredictions in modern processors. It introduces a novel compiler transformation, Melding IR Instructions (MERIT), that eliminates branches by merging similar operations from divergent paths at the IR level. This approach avoids the limitations of traditional if-conversion and hardware predication, particularly for data-dependent branches with irregular patterns. The paper's significance lies in its potential to improve performance by reducing branch mispredictions, especially in scenarios where existing techniques fall short.
Key Takeaways
- •Addresses the performance impact of branch mispredictions.
- •Introduces MERIT, a compiler transformation for branch elimination.
- •MERIT merges similar operations from divergent paths at the IR level.
- •Avoids limitations of traditional if-conversion and hardware predication.
- •Evaluated on 102 programs, achieving significant speedups.
Reference
“MERIT achieves a geometric mean speedup of 10.9% with peak improvements of 32x compared to hardware branch predictor.”