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:
Oct. 03, 2000
Filed:
Feb. 03, 1998
William R Bryg, Saratoga, CA (US);
Stephen G Burger, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Gary N Hammond, Campbell, CA (US);
Michael L Ziegler, Campbell, CA (US);
Institute for the Development of Emerging Architectures, L.L.C., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
Apparatus and method for efficiently sharing data in support of hardware he coherency and coordinated in software with semaphore instructions. Accordingly, a new instruction called 'Load-Bias' which, in addition to normal load operations, requests a private copy of the data, and hints to the hardware cache to try to maintain ownership until the next memory reference from that processor. When used with the Cmpxchg instruction semaphore operation, the Load-Bias instruction will reduce coherency traffic, and minimize the possibility of coherency ping-ponging or system deadlock that causes the condition in which no processor is getting useful work done.