High speed cache data replacing system and its determination

Abstract

The present invention provides for selectively overwriting sets of a cache as a function of a replacement management table and a least recently used function. A class identifier is created as a function of an address miss. A replacement management table is employable to read the class identifier to create a tag replacement control indicia. The cache, comprising a plurality of sets, is employable to disable the replacement of at least one of the plurality of sets as a function of the tag replacement control indicia.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to cache management and, in particular, to software controlled cache set management. technical background [0002] Generally, a cache is a small, fast buffer that can be used to store information, such as instruction codes or data, so that the processing device can access the information more quickly and efficiently. Typically, processing devices read from the smaller cache faster than from main memory. Additionally, cache memory is becoming increasingly important within computing systems with the rapid increase in computationally intensive requirements such as graphics processing and advanced numerical analysis. [0003] Cache is a limited resource. One way to allocate cache sets is to use hardware least recently used (LRU) functionality to determine replacement sets. There are other hardware replacement algorithms, including most recently used and first in first out. With the LRU information, the cache determines the...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In addition, replacement increases the likelihood that the processor will discover the associated information, since the replaced set cache data is likely to be temporally or spatially constrained

[0004] However, there are some problems with using the hardware LRU function in the cache

Images