A FAST AND INEXPENSIVE STORE-LOAD CONFLICT SCHEDULING AND FORWARDING MECHANISM

Embodiments provide a method and apparatus for executing instructions. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a load instruction and a store instruction and calculating a load effective address of load data for the load instruction and a store effective address of store data for the store instruction. The method further includes comparing the load effective address with the store effective address and speculatively forwarding the store data for the store instruction from a first pipeline in which the store instruction is being executed to a second pipeline in which the load instruction is being executed. The load instruction receives the store data from the first pipeline and requested data from a data cache. If the load effective address matches the store effective address, the speculatively forwarded store data is merged with the load data. If the load effective address does not match the store effective address the requested data from the data cache is merged with the load data.