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:
Jun. 16, 2015
Filed:
Dec. 19, 2013
Marvell International Ltd., Hamilton, BM;
Frank O'Bleness, Tempe, AZ (US);
Sujat Jamil, Gilbert, AZ (US);
David Miner, Chandler, AZ (US);
Joseph Delgross, Chandler, AZ (US);
Tom Hameenanttila, Phoenix, AZ (US);
Jeffrey Kehl, Chandler, AZ (US);
Adi Habusha, Haifa, IL;
MARVELL INTERNATIONAL LTD., Hamilton, BM;
Abstract
An apparatus including a snoop filter decoupled from a cache and an associated method for snoop filtering are disclosed. The snoop filter is decoupled from the cache such that the cache changes states of lines in the cache from a first state that is a clean state, such as an exclusive (E) state, to a second state that is not a clean state, such as a modified (M) state, without the snoop filter's knowledge. The snoop filter buffers addresses of replaced lines that are unknown to be clean until a write-back associated with the replacement lines occurs, or until actual states of the replaced lines are determined by the snoop filter generating a snoop. A multi-level cache system in which a reallocation or replacement policy is biased to favor replacing certain lines such as inclusive lines, non-temporal lines or prefetched lines that have not been accessed, is also disclosed.