System and method for storing data in a virtualized memory system with destructive reads

摘要

A system and method for providing high-speed memory operations is disclosed. The technique uses virtualization of memory space to map a virtual address space to a larger physical address space wherein no memory bank conflicts will occur. The larger physical address space is used to prevent memory bank conflicts from occurring by moving the virtualized memory addresses of data being written to memory to a different location in physical memory that will eliminate a memory bank conflict. To improve memory performance destructive read operations are used when reading data but the data is written back into the physical memory in a later cycle.

主权项

1. A method of handling memory access requests in a digital memory system, said method comprising:
receiving a first memory access request, said first memory access request identifying a first virtualized memory address in a virtualized memory address space; translating said first virtualized memory address into a first physical memory address using a virtualized translation table wherein said physical memory address space is larger than said virtualized memory address space, said translating comprising
accessing said virtualized translation table using a first subset of said first virtualized memory address as an index to read out a set of entries from said virtualized translation table,storing said set of entries read from said virtualized translation table into a temporary register when said first memory access request is a read request,accessing said temporary register if a write operation to said first virtualized memory address is received a few clock cycles after said first memory access request to aid in handling said write operationidentifying a first memory bank from a set of N memory banks that currently represents said first virtualized memory address using set of entries from said virtualized translation table, andgenerating said first physical memory address using said first memory bank and a second subset of said first virtualized memory address; handling said first memory access request with a physical memory system using said first physical memory address, said handling comprising
destructively reading a first data word from said first physical memory address into a temporary register,responding to said first memory access request with said first data word; and storing said first data word back into said physical memory, said storing comprising
writing said first data word back into a second physical memory address, andupdating said virtualized translation table to associate said first virtualized memory address with said second physical memory address.