SYSTEM, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MANAGING PREDICTIONS OF VARIOUS ACCESS TYPES TO A MEMORY ASSOCIATED WITH CACHE MEMORY

摘要

A system, apparatus, and method are disclosed for predicting accesses to memory. In one embodiment, an exemplary apparatus comprises a processor configured to execute program instructions and process program data, a memory including the program instructions and the program data, and a memory processor. The memory processor can include a speculator configured to receive an address containing the program instructions or the program data. Such a speculator can comprise a sequential predictor and a nonsequential predictor for generating a configurable number of sequential and nonsequential addresses respectively. In one embodiment, a prefetcher implements the apparatus. In various embodiments, the speculator can also include any of the following: an expediter, a suppressor, an inventory, an inventory filter, a post-inventory filter and a data return cache memory, which can include a short term and a long term cache, among other things.