instruction prefetch
prefetch

    A technique which attempts to minimise the time
   a processor spends waiting for machine instructions to be
   fetched from memory.  Instructions following the one currently
   being executed are loaded into a prefetch queue when the
   processor's external bus is otherwise idle.  If the
   processor executes a branch instruction or receives an
   interrupt then the queue must be flushed and reloaded from
   the new address.

   Instruction prefetch is often combined with pipelining in
   an attempt to keep the pipeline busy.

   By 1995 most processors used prefetching, e.g. Motorola
   680x0, Intel 80x86.

   [First processors using prefetch?]

   (1998-03-29)