Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

instruction scheduling
     
        The {compiler} phase that orders instructions on a
        {pipelined}, {superscalar}, or {VLIW} architecture so as to
        maximise the number of function units operating in parallel
        and to minimise the time they spend waiting for each other.
     
        Examples are filling a {delay slot}; interspersing
        {floating-point} instructions with integer instructions to
        keep both units operating; making adjacent instructions
        independent, e.g. one which writes a register and another which
        reads from it; separating memory writes to avoid filling the
        {write buffer}.
     
        Norman P. Jouppi and David W. Wall, {"Available
        Instruction-Level Parallelism for Superscalar and
        Superpipelined Processors"
       
     (ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/archive/pub/DEC/WRL/research-reports/WRL-TR-89.7.ps.Z)},
        Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
        Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating
        Systems, pp. 272--282, 1989.
     
        [The SPARC Architecture Manual, v8, ISBN 0-13-825001-4]