The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 21, 1993
Filed:
Apr. 30, 1992
John Watkins, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
David Labuda, Half Moon Bay, CA (US);
William C Van Loo, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
An I/O write back cache memory and a data coherency method is provided to a computer system having a cache and a main memory. The data coherency method includes partitioning the main memory into memory segments, dynamically assigning and reassigning the ownership of the memory segments either to the cache memory or the I/O write back cache memory. The ownership of the memory segments controls the accessibility and cacheability of the memory segments for read and write cycles performed by the CPU and I/O devices. During reassignment, various data management actions are taken to ensure data coherency. As a result, the I/O devices can perform read and write cycles addressed against the cache and main memory in a manner that increases system performance with minimal increase in hardware and complexity cost.