The present invention is directed to a system and method for implementing a pre-steered
instruction cache. The hardware logic that normally steers instructions to specific
execution units just prior to execution is moved before the pre-steered instruction
cache, so that instructions are pre-steered into that cache. In other words, the
instructions can be moved into the instruction cache in such a manner that they
are organized in the cache depending on the execution unit(s) to which they will
be transmitted. This is done so that an instruction can leave the pre-steered instruction
cache and enter the execution unit that can execute it with either minimum or no
steering logic involvement. The cache lines of the pre-steered instruction cache
are organized into bins such that each bin corresponds to either a single execution
unit or a cluster of execution units.