Efficient cache organization for way-associativity and high refill and copy-back bandwidth

摘要

In a cache memory access operation data words are retrieved from the cache memory in dependence upon whether the data word reside in the cache memory. If the words reside in cache memory they are provided from the cache memory to a processor, if not then they are brought into cache memory from a main memory. Unfortunately, the data words are stored in cache memory in such a manner that accessing of the cache memory multiple times is required in order to retrieve a single cache line. During the retrieval of the single cache line, the cache memory cannot be accessed for other operations such as cache line refill and copy-back. This results in the processor to incur stall cycles while waiting for these operations to complete. By storing the cache line in such a manner that it spans multiple memory circuits, the processing stall cycles are decreased since fewer clock cycles are required to retrieve the entire cache line from the cache memory. Therefore, more clock cycles are available to facilitate cache line refill and copy-back operations.