True least recently used replacement method and apparatus.

摘要

An apparatus for performing LRU techniques for a 4 way set associative cache system. A RAM stores the ways representing the least recently used (LRU), most recently used (MRU) and LRU+1. The MRU-1 is developed by XORing the other three LRU way information values. Processor or snoop operation is determined and the way use aging information valued is based on snooping or processor operations. For processor operations the accessed or to be accessed way is set as the MRU, while in snoop operations, the way being accessed is set as the LRU. The aging of the remaining ways is shuffled accordingly. This shuffling occurs each cycle but is only stored on processor cache hit, processor read cache miss and snoop hit operations. <IMAGE>