Accessing a Cache Based on an Address Translation Buffer Result

Abstract

Address translation is performed to translate a virtual address targeted by a memory request (e.g., a load or memory request for data or an instruction) to a physical address. This translation is performed using an address translation buffer, e.g., a translation lookaside buffer (TLB). One or more actions are taken to reduce data access latencies for memory requests in the event of a TLB miss where the virtual address to physical address translation is not in the TLB. Examples of actions that are performed in various implementations in response to a TLB miss include bypassing level 1 (L1) and level 2 (L2) caches in the memory system, and speculatively sending the memory request to the L2 cache while checking whether the memory request is satisfied by the L1 cache.

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