Texas Instruments Corporation

Robert J Nychka

Sonu Arora

Vipin Verma

Laurent Geffroy

Nilesh Acharya

Janardan Prasad

Ambar Nawaz

Prashanth Karnamadakala

Aditya Rawal

Systems and methods for discrete power control of components within a computer system are described herein. Some illustrative embodiments include a system that includes a subsystem with a plurality of components (configurable to operate at one or more power levels), a control register (coupled to the plurality of components) including a plurality of bits (each uniquely associated with a one of the plurality of components), and a power controller coupled to, and configurable to cause, the plurality of components to operate at the one or more power levels. The power controller asserts a signal transmitted to the subsystem, commanding the subsystem to transition to a first power level. A first of the plurality of components, associated with an asserted bit of the control register, operates at a second power level corresponding to a level of power consumption different from that of the first power level indicated by the power controller.

Discrete power control of components within a computer system

In a system and method for write hazard handling a memory management unit policy is pre-computed for a write request using an address that is at least one clock cycle before data. The pre-computed memory management unit policy is registered and used for controlling a pipeline stall to ensure that a non-bufferable write is pipeline-protected, so that no non-bufferable location is bypassed from within the pipeline, and so that a subsequent non-bufferable read will get data from a final destination. A read request is bypassed only after a corresponding write request is updated in a write pending buffer. The write request is decoded with the write request aligned to data. The write request is registered in the write pending buffer. Arbitration logic is allowed to force the pipeline stall for a region that will have a write conflict. Read requests are stalled to protect against write hazards.

Method and system for integrated pipeline write hazard handling using memory attributes

A digital system is provided with a hierarchical memory system having at least a first and second level cache and a higher level memory. If a requested data item misses in both the first cache level and in the second cache level, a line of data containing the requested data is obtained from a higher level of the hierarchical memory system. The line of data is allocated to both the first cache level and to the second cache level simultaneously.

High performance multilevel cache hierarchy

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Wills Point, TX, United States of America

Robert J Nychka