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:
Aug. 28, 2001
Filed:
Dec. 17, 1999
John J. Platko, Acton, MA (US);
Paul Chieffo, Bolton, MA (US);
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
The memory space accessible by a processor is partitioned such that multiple memory regions map to the same physical memory. Processor accesses in one of the regions are regarded as normal accesses, and are satisfied from the memory or a read buffer. If memory access is required, the processor is stalled until the desired data is returned from the memory. Processor accesses to the other region are regarded as requests to prefetch the data from the memory and place it into a read buffer without stalling the processor. The processor continues program execution while the data is being prefetched. At a later point in program execution, the processor requests the data via the first region. The data likely resides in the read buffer, and can therefore be provided to the processor quickly, resulting in improved performance.