APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING A MULTI-LEVEL MEMORY HIERARCHY

摘要

A system and method are described for intelligently flushing data from a processor cache. For example, a system according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: a processor having a cache from which data is flushed, the data associated with a particular system address range; and a PCM memory controller for managing access to data stored in a PCM memory device corresponding to the particular system address range; the processor determining whether memory flush hints are enabled for the specified system address range, wherein if memory flush hints are enabled for the specified system address range then the processor sending a memory flush hint to a PCM memory controller of the PCM memory device and wherein the PCM memory controller uses the memory flush hint to determine whether to save the flushed data to the PCM memory device.

主权项

1. A method for utilizing memory flush hints within a computer system comprising:
flushing data from a processor cache; determining whether memory flush hints are enabled for a specified system address range allocated to a phase change memory (“PCM”) memory device; if the memory flush hints are enabled for the specified system address range then generating a memory flush hint for a PCM memory controller of the PCM memory device; and using the memory flush hint to determine whether to save the flushed data to the PCM memory device.