Apparatus and Method for Opportunistic Prefetch Acceleration with Efficient Bandwidth Utilization

A method, comprising:

• executing, by a plurality of cores of a processor coupled to a memory controller, a plurality of instructions, at least some instructions of the plurality of instructions to generate accesses to a system memory coupled to the memory controller,
• accessing, by one or more of the plurality of cores, a plurality of cache memories including cache memories integral to the plurality of cores and cache memories coupled to the plurality of cores;
• and
• prefetching, by prefetch circuitry, cache lines from the system memory into at least a first cache memory of the plurality of cache memories, the prefetch circuitry to enter into an operational mode to accelerate prefetches based on a first utilization metric associated with one or more cores of the plurality of cores and a second utilization metric associated with the accesses to the system memory.

A machine-readable medium having program code stored thereon which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform operations, comprising:

• executing instructions on a first core of a plurality of cores of a processor;
• executing, by a plurality of cores of a processor coupled to a memory controller, a plurality of instructions, at least some instructions of the plurality of instructions to generate accesses to a system memory coupled to the memory controller,
• accessing, by one or more of the plurality of cores, a plurality of cache memories including cache memories integral to the plurality of cores and cache memories coupled to the plurality of cores;
• and
• prefetching, by prefetch circuitry, cache lines from the system memory into at least a first cache memory of the plurality of cache memories, the prefetch circuitry to enter into an operational mode to accelerate prefetches based on a first utilization metric associated with one or more cores of the plurality of cores and a second utilization metric associated with the accesses to the system memory.