Technique for using memory attributes
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsQuinn Jacobson, Anne Bracy, Hong Wang, John Shen, Per Hammarlund, Matthew Merten, Suresh Srinivas, Kshitij Doshi, Gautham Chinya, Bratin Saha, Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai, Gad Sheaffer
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Abstract
A technique for using memory attributes to relay information to a program or other agent. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to using memory attribute bits to check various memory properties in an efficient manner.
Claims35
An apparatus comprising:
- a memory block, the memory block having an associated set of attributes corresponding to only one software thread of a program having multiple software threads.
A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions, which if executed by a machine cause the machine to perform a method comprising:
- reading an attribute bit associated with a cache memory line, the cache memory line corresponding to only one software thread in a multi-threaded program;
- determining the value of the attribute bit;
- performing a light-weight yield event in response in response to determining the value of the attribute bit.
A system comprising:
- a memory to store a load_set instruction and a load_check instruction;
- at least one processor having at least one processing core to fetch at least one of the load_set and the load_check instructions.
A processor comprising:
- a fetch unit to fetch a first instruction to set a plurality of attribute bits associated with a cache line and a second instruction to check the plurality of bits;
- logic to perform a scenario in response to checking the plurality of attribute bits.
A method comprising:
- reading an attribute bit associated with a cache line, the attribute bit to indicate whether a program has recorded a previous reference to the cache line for analysis by a tool chosen from a group consisting of:
- a performance monitoring tool and a debugging tool;
- determining the value of the attribute bit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.