Cache Memory That Supports Tagless Addressing

The disclosed embodiments relate to a computer system with a cache memory that supports tagless addressing. During operation, the system receives a request to perform a memory access, wherein the request includes a virtual address. In response to the request, the system performs an address-translati...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Diep, Trung A, Zheng, Hongzhong
Format: Patent
Sprache:eng
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Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The disclosed embodiments relate to a computer system with a cache memory that supports tagless addressing. During operation, the system receives a request to perform a memory access, wherein the request includes a virtual address. In response to the request, the system performs an address-translation operation, which translates the virtual address into both a physical address and a cache address. Next, the system uses the physical address to access one or more levels of physically addressed cache memory, wherein accessing a given level of physically addressed cache memory involves performing a tag-checking operation based on the physical address. If the access to the one or more levels of physically addressed cache memory fails to hit on a cache line for the memory access, the system uses the cache address to directly index a cache memory, wherein directly indexing the cache memory does not involve performing a tag-checking operation and eliminates the tag storage overhead.