Virtual caching of regenerable data

摘要

A system includes a virtual caching mechanism. A virtual cache is mapped to an address range separate from the main memory address range within a cacheable address space of the system. Regenerable data may be generated from source data and may be allocated space in the virtual cache. The CPU may fetch the data from the virtual cache (and the data may be supplied by a control circuit monitoring the CPU interface for addresses within the address range corresponding to the virtual cache). The data may be cached in a CPU cache, but may not be stored in the main memory. Thus, the CPU may have access to the regenerable data via the CPU cache, but main memory locations may not be required to store the regenerable data. If the regenerable data is replaced in the CPU cache and subsequently requested by the CPU, the regenerable data may be regenerated and supplied to the CPU.