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:
Aug. 09, 2011
Filed:
Jul. 12, 2007
Jeffrey Douglas Brown, Rochester, MN (US);
Russell Dean Hoover, Rochester, MN (US);
Eric Oliver Mejdrich, Rochester, MN (US);
Kenneth Michael Valk, Rochester, MN (US);
Jeffrey Douglas Brown, Rochester, MN (US);
Russell Dean Hoover, Rochester, MN (US);
Eric Oliver Mejdrich, Rochester, MN (US);
Kenneth Michael Valk, Rochester, MN (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
According to embodiments of the invention, a step value and a step-interval cache coherency protocol may be used to update and invalidate data stored within cache memory. A step value may be an integer value and may be stored within a cache directory entry associated with data in the memory cache. Upon reception of a cache read request, along with the normal address comparison to determine if the data is located within the cache a current step value may be compared with the stored step value to determine if the data is current. If the step values match, the data may be current and a cache hit may occur. However, if the step values do not match, the requested data may be provided from another source. Furthermore, an application may update the current step value to invalidate old data stored within the cache and associated with a different step value.