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.

Date of Patent:
Sep. 10, 2002

Filed:

Jul. 27, 1999
Applicant:
Inventors:

Richard J. Burgess, Jr., Phoenix, AZ (US);

Mark A. Schaecher, Phoenix, AZ (US);

Jay B. Miller, Chandler, AZ (US);

Assignee:

Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/200 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/200 ;
Abstract

A method for conserving power during a cache memory operation is disclosed. The validity and the parity of the tag address are checked. If the tag is invalid or the parity bit does not check, the tag is not read and a tag comparison is not performed, such that the data is accessed from the main memory. Otherwise, the tag address bits are selected in a plurality of tag subsets. A first tag subset of the plurality of tag subsets is compared with a respective first subset of the tag field of the memory address bits. A first compare signal indicative of the result of the first comparison is outputted. The cache memory operation is interrupted if the first compare signal indicates the first tag subset does not match the respective first subset of the tag field of the memory address.


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