ARM > Efficient C for ARM > Loop Unrolling

by David Thomas on —

Loop Unrolling

Small loops can be unrolled.

  • Inner part repeated multiple times.
    • Higher performance.
    • At the expense of increased code size.

When unrolled:

  • Loop counter needs to be updated less often.
  • Fewer branches are executed.

If small enough the loop can be completely unrolled.

  • All test-and-branch overhead vanishes.

Example

Before unrolling:

int countbits1(unsigned int N)
{
  int nbits = 0;
  while (N) {
    if (N & 1) nbits++;
    N >>= 1;
  }
  return nbits;
}

9 instructions → 6 cycles/bit.

After unrolling:

int countbits2(unsigned int N)
{
  int nbits = 0;
  while (N) {
    if (N & 1) nbits++;
    if (N & 2) nbits++;
    if (N & 4) nbits++;
    if (N & 8) nbits++;
    N >>= 4;
  }
  return nbits;
}

15 instructions → 3 cycles/bit.

Remarks

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