SWITCHING BETWEEN A PLURALITY OF BRANCH PREDICTION PROCESSES BASED ON WHICH INSTRUCTION SET IS OPERATIONAL WHEREIN BRANCH HISTORY DATA STRUCTURES ARE THE SAME FOR THE PLURALITY OF INSTRUCTION SETS

A multiple instruction set processor and method dynamically activates one of a plurality of branch prediction processes depending upon which one of a multiple instruction set is operational. Shared branch history table structures are used and are indexed differently depending upon which instruction set is operational. The apparatus and method also allows switching between instruction set index generators for each of the plurality of instruction sets. Accordingly, different indexes to branch prediction data are used depending upon which of the plurality of instruction sets is operational. Shared memory may be used to contain branch prediction table data for instructions from each of the plurality of instruction sets in response to selection of an instruction set. Shared memory is also used to contain branch target buffer data for instructions from each of the plurality of instruction sets in response to selection of one of the instruction sets.