摘要 |
An instruction pipeline is provided which can handle stack cache misses without stalling. The instruction pipeline includes a stack cache fetch stage configured to retrieve data from a stack cache and a data cache fetch stage configured to retrieve data from a data cache. The instruction pipeline writes data out during a write stage that occurs at the end of the instruction pipeline. Thus, instead of stalling on a stack cache miss, the instruction pipeline can continue processing and issuing a data cache request in the data cache fetch stage for the required data. In addition, some embodiments of the invention include a feedback path between the stack cache fetch stage and pipeline stages following the stack cache fetch stage. If the stack cache fetch stage requires data from an address that is also being used by a later pipeline stage, the data in the later pipeline stage is sent to the stack cache fetch stage through the feedback path.
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