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:
Apr. 15, 2008
Filed:
Oct. 15, 2004
Ramakrishna Huggahalli, Portland, OR (US);
Brannon J. Batson, Boston, MA (US);
Raymond S. Tetrick, Portland, OR (US);
Robert G. Blankenship, Tacoma, WA (US);
Ramakrishna Huggahalli, Portland, OR (US);
Brannon J. Batson, Boston, MA (US);
Raymond S. Tetrick, Portland, OR (US);
Robert G. Blankenship, Tacoma, WA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An arrangement is provided for an external agent to initiate data prefetches from a system memory to a cache associated with a target processor, which needs the data to execute a program, in a computing system. When the external agent has data, it may create and issue a prefetch directive. The prefetch directive may be sent along with system interconnection transactions or sent as a separate transaction to devices including the target processor in the system. When receiving and recognizing the prefetch directive, a hardware prefetcher associated with the target processor may issue a request to the system memory to prefetch data to the cache. The target processor can access data in the cache more efficiently than it accesses data in the system memory. Some pre-processing may also be associated with the data prefetch.