Intel Corporation

Other

John M Bauer

Wen-Hann Wang

Stephen H Gunther

Edward Allyn Burton

Nitin V Sarangdhar

Linda J Rankin

Douglas M Carmean

Michael W Rhodehamel

Gurbir Singh

Frank Binns

Jack D Pippin

Glenn J Hinton

Konrad K Lai

David B Papworth

Mandar S Joshi

Ashwani Kumar Gupta

Gregory P Meece

An integrated, on-chip thermal management system providing closed-loop temperature control of an IC device and methods of performing thermal management of an IC device. The thermal management system comprises a temperature detection element, a power modulation element, a control element, and a visibility element. The temperature detection element includes a temperature sensor for detecting die temperature. The power modulation element may reduce the power consumption of an IC device by directly lowering the power consumption of the IC device, by limiting the speed at which the IC device executes instructions, by limiting the number of instructions executed by the IC device, or by a combination of these techniques. The control element allows for control over the behavior of the thermal management system, and the visibility element allows external devices to monitor the status of the thermal management system.

Methods and apparatus for thermal management of an integrated circuit die

A fly fishing reel having a large diameter arbor wall defining a large diameter recess within the spool within which recess are contained support structure for rotatably supporting the spool, and a digitally manipulable drag adjustment knob rotatably actuable through use of a single finger to apply a rotary adjusting moment on the knob. Also enclosed within the large diameter central recess of the reel is a zero backlash drag engagement structure operable to eliminate line jerk and to control the direction of rotation of the spool, thus enabling customizing of the reel for right or left handed fishermen.

Large arbor fishing reel embodying recessed drag control knob and zero

A method and apparatus for cache memory replacement line identification have a cache interface which provides a communication interface between a cache memory and a controller for the cache memory. The interface includes an address bus, a data bus, and a status bus. The address bus transfers requested addresses from the controller to the cache memory. The data bus transfers data associated with requested addresses from the controller to the cache memory, and also transfers replacement line addresses from the cache memory to the controller. The status bus transfers status information associated with the requested addresses from the cache memory to the controller which indicate whether the requested addresses are contained in the cache memory. In one embodiment, the data bus also transfers cache line data associated with a requested address from the cache memory to the controller when the requested address hits the cache memory.

Method and apparatus for cache memory replacement line identification

A computer system comprising a plurality of caching agents with a cache hierarchy, the caching agents sharing memory across a system bus and issuing memory access requests in accordance with a protocol wherein a line of a cache has a present state comprising one of a plurality of line states. The plurality of line states includes a modified (M) state, wherein a line of a first caching agent in M state has data which is more recent than any other copy in the system; an exclusive (E) state, wherein a line in E state in a first caching agent is the only one of the agents in the system which has a copy of the data in a line of the cache, the first caching agent modifying the data in the cache line independent of other said agents coupled to the system bus; a shared (S) state, wherein a line in S state indicates that more than one of the agents has a copy of the data in the line; and an invalid (I) state indicating that the line does not exist in the cache. A read or a write to a line in I state results in a cache miss. The present invention associates states with lines and defines rules governing state transitions. State transitions depend on both processor generated activities and activities by other bus agents, including other processors. Data consistency is guaranteed in systems having multiple levels of cache and shared memory and/or multiple active agents, such that no agent ever reads stale data and actions are serialized as needed.

Apparatus for maintaining multilevel cache hierarchy coherency in a

A method and apparatus for transferring information between a processor and a memory system utilizing a chunk write buffer, where read and write requests to the L2 cache memory are controlled by the processor. The cache line associated with each such request is larger than the interface coupling the L2 cache memory and the processor. Read requests are returned from the L2 cache memory to the processor in burst fashion. Write requests are transferred from the processor to the L2 cache memory during clock cycles in which the processor does not require the interface for a read request. Write requests need not be transferred in burst fashion; rather, a portion of the write request corresponding to the size of the interface, referred to as a chunk, is transferred from the processor to the L2 cache memory and stored temporarily in the chunk write buffer. When the processor has transferred the entire cache line to the L2 cache memory, the processor signals the L2 cache memory to transfer the contents of the chunk write buffer into the data array of the cache memory.

Method and apparatus for transferring information between a processor

A cache memory with reduced request-blocking blocks requests from being accepted by the cache memory based on the types of requests the cache is already servicing. A request which hits the cache memory or a request which misses the cache memory but does not conflict with any requests already being serviced is not blocked. A request which misses the cache memory and also conflicts with a request(s) already being serviced causes the request to be blocked. In one embodiment, conflicts for write requests are determined by checking whether the cache is already retrieving a cache line from system memory for a request which maps into the same cache set as the write request. If such a request exists, then a conflict occurs. In this embodiment, conflicts for read requests are determined by checking whether the cache is already servicing an outstanding request to memory for the same address. If so, then a conflict occurs. If not, then a conflict does not occur unless the victim line for the read request is dirty and no space exists in a write-back buffer to temporarily store the victim line.

Cache memory with reduced request-blocking

A method and apparatus for performing error correction on data from an external memory is described. The present invention includes a method and apparatus for receiving data from an external memory source and determining if the data has an error. The data is forwarded to the requesting unit while the error correction is performed on the data, such that the two operations are performed in parallel. The present invention also includes a method and apparatus for subsequently correcting data if a single bit error exists. The corrected data is then forwarded to the requesting unit during the next cycle. Also if an error is detected, the present invention produces an indication to the device. The device is flushed in response to the indication.

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Portland, OR, United States of America

John M Bauer