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:
May. 20, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 14, 1996
Joseph P Bratt, San Jose, CA (US);
John Brennan, Mountainview, CA (US);
Peter Y Hsu, Freemont, CA (US);
William A Huffman, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Joseph T Scanlon, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Steve Ciavaglia, Williston, VT (US);
Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for preventing deadlock due to the need for data exclusivity when performing forced atomic instructions in a multi-level cache in a multi-processor system. The system determines whether an aligned multi-byte word in which the data of a forced atomic instruction, such as an integer store operation, is exclusive in a first level cache. If so, the forced atomic instruction is allowed to enter a second level cache pipeline. If not, the forced atomic instruction is prevented from entering the second level cache pipeline and a cache miss and fill operation is initiated to cause the aligned word to be exclusive in the first level cache.