Methods and apparatus for determining operating characteristics of a memory element based on its physical location
US5778407A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 21, 1996 |
| Grant date | Jul 7, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 21, 2016 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F2212/206
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A circuit comprising a number of range registers and complimentary decoding/matching circuits is provided to a processor for determining the memory type of a physical address, thereby allowing memory operating characteristics to be determined as soon as the physical address is available in an execution stage preceding cache access. Additionally, a memory type field is provided to each address translation lookaside buffer entry of the data and instruction memory subsystem for storing the determined memory type, and the memory type determination circuit is disposed in the page miss handler, thereby allowing memory type to be determined at the same time when the physical address is determined.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.