In computer architecture, a branch predictor is a digital circuit that tries to guess which way a branch (e.g. an if-then-else structure) will go before this is known for sure. The purpose of the branch predictor is to improve the flow in the instruction pipeline. Branch predictors are crucial in today's pipelined microprocessors for achieving high performance. A two-way branching is usually implemented with a conditional jump instruction. A conditional jump can either be "not taken" and continue execution with the first branch of code which follows immediately after the conditional jump - or it can be "taken" and jump to a different place in program memory where the second branch of code is stored.

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