Flexible control mechanism for store gathering in a write buffer
AssigneeFreescale Semiconductor, Inc.
InventorsWilliam C. Moyer, Quyen Pho
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A store gathering policy is enabled or disabled at a data processing device. A store gathering policy to be implemented by a store buffer can be selected from a plurality of store gathering polices. For example, the plurality of store gathering policies can be constrained or unconstrained. A store gathering policy can be enabled by a user programmable storage location. A specific store gathering policy can be specified by a user programmable storage location. A store gathering policy can be determined based upon an attribute of a store request, such as based upon a destination address.
Claims21
A method comprising:
- determining a store gathering policy indicator of a data processor device;
- selectively enabling a store gathering policy indicating a type of data gathering to be used based on the store gathering policy indicator;
- storing a set of data information in an entry of a store buffer based upon the store gathering policy;
- and
- providing a store request that includes the set of data information in the entry.
A method comprising:
- determining a first store gathering policy based upon a gathering indicator of a data processor;
- gathering data information from a plurality of store requests at an entry of a store buffer entry based upon the first store gathering policy indicating a type of data gathering to be used;
- and
- retiring each one of the store requests of a plurality of store requests at a corresponding device of the data processor.
A device, comprising:
- a data processing core to initiate store requests;
- a system bus coupled to a bus interface unit to communicate store requests;
- a store buffer comprising a store buffer control module coupled to the data processing core to receive a plurality of store requests from a source and to determine a type of data gathering to be used, from a plurality of types of data gathering, to be implemented at the store buffer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.