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:
May. 13, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 28, 2001
Michael K Dugan, Richardson, TX (US);
Gary B Gostin, Plano, TX (US);
Mark A Heap, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Terry C Huang, San Jose, CA (US);
Curtis R. McAllister, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Henry Yu, San Jose, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for performing speculative directory cache tag updates for read accesses to memory is herein disclosed. A control unit for performing tag updates is coupled between the memory controller and the memory bank in a multiprocessor system that employs a directory-based coherency protocol. The control unit transmits data read from the memory bank to the memory controller while calculating the updated tag that it then writes back to the memory bank. In this manner, the memory bank busy time and memory bus traffic are reduced thereby improving the overall performance of a memory access.