Allocating cache for use as a dedicated local storage

摘要

A method and apparatus dynamically allocates and deallocates a portion of a cache for use as a dedicated local storage. Cache lines may be dynamically allocated and deallocated for inclusion in the dedicated local storage. Cache entries that are included in the dedicated local storage may not be evicted or invalidated. Additionally, coherence is not maintained between the cache entries that are included in the dedicated local storage and the backing memory. A load instruction may be configured to allocate, e.g., lock, a portion of the data cache for inclusion in the dedicated local storage and load data into the dedicated local storage. A load instruction may be configured to read data from the dedicated local storage and to deallocate, e.g., unlock, a portion of the data cache that was included in the dedicated local storage.

主权项

1. A system for dynamically allocating a portion of a cache for use as dedicated local storage in a multithreading processing environment, the system comprising:
a backing memory; and a multithreaded processor coupled to the backing memory and that includes the cache, wherein the cache is configured to:
receive a push context instruction that includes information associated with context data for a first thread being currently executed by the processor;using the information included with the push context instruction, define a portion of the cache to be allocated for use as dedicated local storage;store the context data for the first thread in the defined portion of the cache; andupdate a setting to indicate that entries in the defined portion of the cache should not be evicted or invalidated and that coherency should not be maintained between entries in the portion of the cache and the backing memory.