Intel Corporation

Rami May

Varun Mohandru

Niranjan L Cooray

Fernando Latorre

Jaroslaw Topp

Li-Gao Zei

Naveen Neelakantam

Pedro Lopez

Allan Douglas Knies

Steffen Kosinski

Lutz Naethke

Thomas Gaertner

Doron Gershon

A system and method to implement a tag structure for a cache memory that includes a multi-way, set-associative translation lookaside buffer. The tag structure may store vectors in an L1 tag array to enable an L1 tag lookup that has fewer bits per entry and consumes less power. The vectors may identify entries in a translation lookaside buffer tag array. When a virtual memory address associated with a memory access instruction hits in the translation lookaside buffer, the translation lookaside buffer may generate a vector identifying the set and the way of the translation lookaside buffer entry that matched. This vector may then be compared to a group of vectors stored in a set of the L1 tag arrays to determine whether the virtual memory address hits in the L1 cache.

Power efficient level one data cache access with pre-validated tags

Responsive to execution of a computer instruction in a current translation window, state indicators associated with a cache line accessed for the execution may be modified. The state indicators may include: a first indicator to indicate whether the computer instruction is a load instruction moved from a subsequent translation window into the current translation window, a second indicator to indicate whether the cache line is modified in a cache responsive to the execution of the computer instruction, a third indicator to indicate whether the cache line is speculatively modified in the cache responsive to the execution of the computer instruction, a fourth indicator to indicate whether the cache line is speculatively loaded by the computer instruction, a fifth indicator to indicate whether a core executing the computer instruction exclusively owns the cache line, and a sixth indicator to indicate whether the cache line is invalid.

Cache coherency and processor consistency

A processor includes a processor core including an execution unit to execute instructions, and a cache memory. The cache memory includes a controller to update each of a plurality of stale indicators in response to a lazy flush instruction. Each stale indicator is associated with respective data, and each updated stale indicator is to indicate that the respective data is stale. The cache memory also includes a plurality of cache lines. Each cache line is to store corresponding data and a foreground tag that includes a respective virtual address associated with the corresponding data, and that includes the associated stale indicator. Other embodiments are described as claimed.

Method and apparatus to implement lazy flush in a virtually tagged cache memory

Growing community of inventors

Haifa, Israel

Rami May