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:
Dec. 02, 1997
Filed:
Dec. 30, 1996
Hoichi Cheong, Travis County, TX (US);
Dwain A Hicks, Travis County, TX (US);
Kimming So, Travis County, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A multi-processor data processing system has a multi-level cache wherein each processor has a split high level (e.g., level one or L1) cache composed of a data cache (DCache) and an instruction cache (ICache). A shared lower level (e.g., level two or L2) cache includes a cache array which is a superset of the cache lines in all L1 caches. There is a directory of L2 cache lines such that each line has a set of inclusion bits indicating if the line is residing in any of the L1 caches. A directory management system requires only N+2 inclusion bits per L2 line, where N is the number of processors having L1 caches sharing the L2 cache.