Coordinated cache management policy for an exclusive cache hierarchy

Abstract

Embodiments include a method and system for coordinating cache management for an exclusive cache hierarchy. The method and system may include managing, by a coordinated cache logic section, a level three (L3) cache, a level two (L2) cache, and/or a level one (L1) cache. Managing the L3 cache and the L2 cache may include coordinating a cache block replacement policy among the L3 cache and the L2 cache by filtering data with lower reuse probability from data with higher reuse probability. The method and system may include tracking reuse patterns of demand requests separately from reuse patterns of prefetch requests. Accordingly, a coordinated cache management policy may be built across multiple levels of a cache hierarchy, rather than a cache replacement policy within one cache level. Higher-level cache behavior may be used to guide lower-level cache allocation, bringing greater visibility of cache behavior to exclusive last level caches (LLCs).