MEMORY MANAGEMENT USING DYNAMICALLY ALLOCATED DIRTY MASK SPACE

摘要

Systems and methods related to a memory system including a cache memory are disclosed. The cache memory system includes a cache memory including a plurality of cache memory lines and a dirty buffer including a plurality of dirty masks. A cache controller is configured to allocate one of the dirty masks to each of the cache memory lines when a write to the respective cache memory line is not a full write to that cache memory line. Each of the dirty masks indicates dirty states of data units in one of the cache memory lines. The cache controller stores an identification (ID) information that associates the dirty masks with the cache memory lines to which the dirty masks are allocated.