6. Concluding remarks

Data-driven execution can be seen as a duality of the assembly line model, which seems to have inspired the architecture of pipelined processors. In an assembly line, objects to be built (instructions to be executed) flow past fixed workstations (operators). Data-driven processors operate in a way that can be compared to the organization of assembly halls. The objects to be built (the instructions to be executed) remain at fixed stations (in the ROB and in the reservation stations) where they are visited by specialized workers (the operators) who carry out the task assigned to them. Once completed, the objects are removed from the assembly hall (termination) to leave their places free for the construction of new objects.

Interested readers will find performance comparisons between superscalar in-order and data-flow execution in the article