Programmable agent and method for managing prefetch queues

摘要

A programmable agent and method for managing prefetch queues provide dynamically configurable handling of priorities in a prefetching subsystem for providing look-ahead memory loads in a computer system. When it's queues are at capacity an agent handling prefetches from memory either ignores new requests, forces the new requests to retry or cancels a pending request in order to perform the new request. The behavior can be adjusted under program control by programming a register, or the control may be coupled to a load pattern analyzer. In addition, the behavior with respect to new requests can be set to different types depending on a phase of a pending request.