Abstract: Generating a hashed value of the program counter in a data processing system. The hashed value can be used for prefetching in the data processing system. In some examples, the hashed value is used to identify whether a load instruction associated with the hashed value has an address that is part of a strided stream in an address stream. In some examples, the hashed value is a subset of bits of the bits of the program counter. In other examples, the hashed value may be derived in other ways from the program counter.

Abstract: A first prefetch engine from a first plurality of prefetch engines is allocated to a first load instruction in response to a buffer miss of an iteration of the first load instruction in a program stream. The first plurality of prefetch engines include prefetch engines for prefetching data from memory to a buffer based on a predicted stride. A second prefetch engine from a second plurality of prefetch engines is allocated to the first load instruction in response to the buffer miss. The second plurality of prefetch engines include prefetch engines for prefetching data from memory to the buffer based on an instruction loop representative of a sequence of instructions that affect an address value associated with an allocated load instruction. One of the first or second prefetch engines is deallocated if the other prefetch engine achieves a prefetch performance greater than a first threshold value.