What is "prefetching"

vb. (present participle of prefetch English)

Prefetching may refer to:

• Instruction prefetch, in computer architecture, a microprocessor speedup technique
• Prefetch input queue (PIQ), in computer architecture, pre-loading machine code from memory
• Link prefetching, a web mechanism for prefetching links
• The Prefetcher technology in modern releases of Microsoft Windows
• prefetch instructions, for example provided by PREFETCH an X86 instruction in computing
• Prefetch buffer, a feature of DDR SDRAM memory
• Swap prefetch, in computer operating systems, anticipatory paging