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:
Feb. 12, 2008
Filed:
Mar. 23, 2005
Thomas Andrew Sartorius, Raleigh, NC (US);
Victor Roberts Augsburg, Cary, NC (US);
James Norris Dieffenderfer, Apex, NC (US);
Thomas Andrew Sartorius, Raleigh, NC (US);
Victor Roberts Augsburg, Cary, NC (US);
James Norris Dieffenderfer, Apex, NC (US);
QUALCOMM Incorporated, San Diego, CA (US);
Abstract
A processor includes a cache memory having at least one entry managed according to a copy-back algorithm. A global modified indicator (GMI) indicates whether any copy-back entry in the cache contains modified data. On a cache miss, if the GMI indicates that no copy-back entry in the cache contains modified data, data fetched from memory are written to the selected entry without first reading the entry. In a banked cache, two or more bank-GMIs may be associated with two or more banks. In an n-way set associative cache, n set-GMIs may be associated with the n sets. Suppressing the read to determine if the copy-back cache entry contains modified data improves processor performance and reduces power consumption.