CACHE HIERARCHY MANAGEMENT WITH LOCALITY HINTS FOR DIFFERENT CACHE LEVELS

摘要

A computer system and method in which allocation of a cache memory (21a, 22a) is managed by utilizing a locality hint value (17, 18), included within an instruction (19), which controls if cache allocation is to be made. The locality value is based on spatial and/or temporal locality for a data access and may be assigned to each level of a cache hierarchy where allocation control is desired. The locality hint value may be used to identify a lowest level where management of cache allocation is desired and cache is allocated at that level and any higher level or levels. If the locality hint identifies a particular access for data as temporal or non-temporal with respect to a particular cache level, the particular access may be determined to be temporal or non-temporal with respect to the higher and lower cache levels.