Joint scheduler for high bandwidth multi-shot prefetching

Abstract

A joint scheduler adapted for dispatching prefetch and demand accesses of data relating to a plurality of instructions loaded in an execution pipeline of processing circuit(s). Each prefetch access comprises checking whether a respective data is cached in a cache entry and each demand access comprises accessing a respective data. The joint scheduler is adapted to, responsive to each hit prefetch access dispatched for a respective data relating to a respective instruction, associate the respective instruction with a valid indication and a pointer to a respective cache entry storing the respective data such that the demand access relating to the respective instruction uses the associated pointer to access the respective data in the cache, and responsive to each missed prefetch access dispatched for a respective data relating to a respective instruction, initiate a read cycle for loading the respective data from next level memory and cache it in the cache.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.