When executing a taken branch with delay slot, only the fetch pipeline stage in MicroBlaze is flushed. The instruction in the decode stage (branch delay slot) is allowed to complete. This technique effectively reduces the branch penalty from two clock cycles to one. Branch instructions with delay slots have a D appended to the instruction mnemonic. For example, the BNE instruction does not execute the subsequent instruction (does not have a delay slot), whereas BNED executes the next instruction before control is transferred to the branch location.
A delay slot must not contain the following instructions: IMM, IMML, branch, or break. Interrupts and external hardware breaks are deferred until after the delay slot branch has been completed. Instructions that could cause recoverable exceptions (for example unaligned word or halfword load and store) are allowed in the delay slot.
If an exception is caused in a delay slot the ESR[DS] bit is set, and the exception handler is responsible for returning the execution to the branch target (stored in the special purpose register BTR). If the ESR[DS] bit is set, register R17 is not valid (otherwise it contains the address following the instruction causing the exception).