Centaur Technology, Inc.

Al Loper

Douglas Raye Reed

In one embodiment, a controller in a microprocessor, the controller configured to manage accesses to dynamic random access memory (DRAM), the controller comprising: a first table configured to track cache lines that have been written to zero for a plurality of first memory regions; and a second table configured to track the cache lines that have been written to zero for a plurality of second memory regions, wherein each of the plurality of second memory regions comprises a group of the plurality of first memory regions where all of the cache lines within each of the plurality of the first memory regions within the group have been written to zero.

Refreshing cache regions using a memory controller and multiple tables

In one embodiment, a microprocessor, comprising: plural cores, each of the cores comprising a level 1 (L1) cache and a level 2 (L2) cache; and a shared level 3 (L3) cache comprising plural L3 tag array entries, wherein a first portion of the plural L3 tag array entries is associated with data and a second portion of the plural L3 tag array entries is decoupled from data, wherein each L3 tag array entry comprises tag information and data zero information, the data zero information indicating whether any data associated with the tag information is known to be zero or not.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Al Loper