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:
Jul. 07, 1998
Filed:
Jul. 01, 1996
Lawrence H Rubin, Austin, TX (US);
Paul A Reed, Austin, TX (US);
Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for efficiently performing a cache operation in a processor (70) for both flushing and non-flushing. One embodiment uses a cache flush control bit (100) in a data cache (90) to determine whether or not to ignore valid bits (130) during a pseudo least recently used (LRU) replacement algorithm. When the replacement algorithm is being used for flushing the data cache (90), the valid bits (130) are not used in order to make the algorithm more efficient. If the valid bits (130) are ignored, then the least recently used bits (120) are used to select the cache line that will be replaced. However, when the replacement algorithm is being used for a non-flushing replacement purpose, the valid bits (130) are used first, followed by the plurality of least recently used bits (120), to select the cache line that will be replaced.