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. 22, 1998
Filed:
Jan. 25, 1996
David Edgar Castle, Poway, CA (US);
Greggory Douglas Donley, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Laurence Paul Flora, Valley Center, CA (US);
Unisys Corporation, Blue Bell, PA (US);
Abstract
A multi-level distributed data processing system includes: 1) a system bus having a main memory coupled thereto; 2) multiple high level cache memories, each of which has a first port coupled to the system bus and a second port coupled to a respective processor bus; and, 3) each processor bus is coupled to multiple digital computers through respective low level cache memories. Further, each low level cache memory stores data words with respective tag bits which identify each data word as being shared, modified or invalid but never exclusive; and, each high level cache memory stores data words with respective tag bits which identify each data word as being shared, modified, invalid, or exclusive. By identifying a data word in a low level cache memory as shared, even when that data word is not in any other low level cache memory, the high level cache memories are able to prevent two computers on separate processor busses from modifying that data word differently; and in addition, the high level cache memories are able to track the data words which get modified.