Piggy-Back Snoops For Non-Coherent Memory Transactions Within Distributed Processing Systems

摘要

Piggy-back snoops are used for non-coherent memory transactions in distributed processing systems. Coherent and non-coherent memory transactions are received from a plurality of processing cores within a distributed processing system. Non-coherent snoop information for the non-coherent memory transactions is combined with coherent snoop information for the coherent memory transactions to form expanded snoop messages. The expanded snoop messages are then output to a snoop bus interconnect during snoop cycles for the distributed processing system. As such, when the processing cores monitor the snoop bus interconnect, the processing cores receive the non-coherent snoop information along with coherent snoop information within the same snoop cycle. While this piggy-backing of non-coherent snoop information with coherent snoop information uses an expanded snoop bus interconnect, usage of the coherent snoop bandwidth is significantly reduced thereby improving overall performance of the distributed processing system.

主权项

1. A method for operating a distributed processing system, comprising:
receiving a plurality of memory transactions from a plurality of processing cores within a distributing processing system, the memory transactions comprising coherent memory transactions and non-coherent memory transactions; combining non-coherent snoop information for non-coherent memory transactions with coherent snoop information for coherent memory transactions to form a plurality of expanded snoop messages; and outputting the expanded snoop messages to a snoop bus interconnect during a plurality of snoop cycles for the distributed processing system.