> They still go over the various techniques used, their consequences, etc., so the processor chosen as an example is unimportant.

They also include various techniques not used anymore, without mentioning that’s the case. I did a search for “branch predictor static forward not taken site:.edu” and found many documents which discuss that particular BTFN technique. In modern CPUs the predictor works before fetch or decode.

> university courses don't cover that

Here’s a link to one: https://course.ece.cmu.edu/~ece740/f15/lib/exe/fetch.php?med... According to the first slide, the document was written in fall 2015. It has dedicated slides discussing particular implementations of branch predictors in Pentium Pro, Alpha 21264, Pentium M, and Pentium 4.

The processors being covered were released between 1995 and 2003. At the time that course was written, people were already programming Skylake and Excavator, and Zen 1 was just around the corner.

I’m not saying the professor failed to deliver. Quite the opposite, information about old CPUs is better than pure theory without any practically useful stuff. Still, I’m pretty sure they would be happy to included slides about contemporary CPUs, if only that information was public.