Cache Management Operations Using Streaming Engine
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorported
InventorsJoseph Raymond Michael Zbiciak, Timothy David Anderson, Jonathan (Son) Hung Tran, Kai Chirca, Daniel Wu, Abhijeet Ashok Chachad, David M. Thompson
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Abstract
A stream of data is accessed from a memory system using a stream of addresses generated in a first mode of operating a streaming engine in response to executing a first stream instruction. A block cache management operation is performed on a cache in the memory using a block of addresses generated in a second mode of operating the streaming engine in response to executing a second stream instruction.
Claims20
A method of managing a cache in a computer system, the method comprising:
- executing instructions including a first stream instruction and a second stream instruction on a processor within the computer system;
- fetching a stream of data elements from a memory coupled to the processor using a stream of addresses generated in a first mode of operating a streaming engine in response to executing the first stream instruction;
- and
- performing a block cache management operation (CMO) on the cache using a block of addresses generated in a second mode of operating the streaming engine in response to executing the second stream instruction.
A data processing system comprising:
- a processor to execute instructions including a first stream instruction and a second stream instruction;
- a memory system coupled to the processor, the memory system having a cache with cache lines to store data elements and a sharable bulk memory storage;
- and
- a streaming engine coupled to the processor and to the memory system, the streaming engine having an address generator to generate a stream of addresses and at least two modes of operation responsive respectively to the first stream instruction and to the second stream instruction, such that the streaming engine is operable to use the stream of addresses to fetch a respective stream of data elements from the memory system for access by the processor in a first mode of operation, and is operable to use the stream of addresses to perform a block cache management operation on the cache in a second mode of operation.
A method for operating a streaming engine in a computer system, the method comprising:
- generating a stream of addresses using an address generator in the streaming engine;
- fetching a stream of data elements from a cache in a memory system of the computer system using the stream of addresses and providing the stream of data elements to a processor of the computer system while the streaming engine is in a first mode of operation;
- and
- cleaning the cache by reading the stream of data elements from the cache without providing the stream of data elements to the processor while the streaming engine is in a second mode of operation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.