| 摘要 |
<p>A plurality of 'snoop advisory' bits, each corresponds to a page of the memory address space (114), are maintained by snoop management circuitry (140) externally to a processor (110). Three processes take place with these bits. First, in response to each cache line fill operation with intent to modify by the processor, snoop management circuitry writes a 'snoop yes' into the bit corresponding to the page of the processor's access. Second, in response to each access by another device (124) the bit which corresponds to the page being accessed is checked. If the bit contains the 'snoop yes' then a snoop request is issued to the processor. Otherwise, no snoop request is issued. Third, on a recurrent basis, the processor's internal cache is synchronized with the memory (i.e. writing back modified data, and/or invalidating each line in the cache) and writing a 'snoop no' into each of the bits.</p> |
