Prefetching in computer science is a technique for speeding up fetch operations by beginning a fetch operation whose result is expected to be needed soon. Usually this is before it is known to be needed, so there is a risk of wasting time by prefetching data that will not be used. The technique can be applied in several circumstances:
- Cache prefetching, a speedup technique used by computer processors where instructions or data are fetched before they are needed
- Prefetch input queue (PIQ), in computer architecture, pre-loading machine code from memory
- Link prefetching, a web mechanism for prefetching links
- Prefetcher technology in modern releases of Microsoft Windows
- Prefetch instructions, for example provided by
PREFETCH, an X86 instruction in computing
- Prefetch buffer, a feature of DDR SDRAM memory
- Swap prefetch, in computer operating systems, anticipatory paging
See also
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The dictionary definition of prefetching at Wiktionary
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