Memory interface between physical and virtual address spaces

Abstract

A memory interface for interfacing between a memory bus addressable using a physical address space and a cache memory addressable using a virtual address space, the memory interface comprising: a memory management unit configured to maintain a mapping from the virtual address space to the physical address space; and a coherency manager comprising a reverse translation module configured to maintain a mapping from the physical address space to the virtual address space; wherein the memory interface is configured to: receive a memory read request from the cache memory, the memory read request being addressed in the virtual address space; translate the memory read request, at the memory management unit, to a translated memory read request addressed in the physical address space for transmission on the memory bus; receive a snoop request from the memory bus, the snoop request being addressed in the physical address space; and translate the snoop request, at the coherency manager, to a translated snoop request addressed in the virtual address space for processing in connection with the cache memory.