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:
Dec. 26, 2006
Filed:
May. 27, 2003
Trevor S. Garner, Apex, NC (US);
William R. Lee, Cary, NC (US);
Martin W. Hughes, Cary, NC (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A technique for managing a cache memory coupled to an intermediate node's processor. Packets acquired by the intermediate node that are destined for processing by the processor are tracked, without the processor's intervention, to determine if the processor is lagging in processing the acquired packets. If so, data associated with unprocessed packets are pre-fetched from an external memory and placed in the cache memory without the processor's intervention. Moreover, packets destined for processing by the processor and placed into the cache memory are tracked, without the processor's intervention, to determine if the processor has, in fact, completed the processing of those packets. If so, data contained in the cache memory that is associated with the processed packets are invalidated, again without the processor's intervention.