Data prefetch throttle

A system and method taught herein control data prefetching for a data cache by tracking prefetch hits and overall hits for the data cache. Data prefetching for the data cache is disabled based on the tracking of prefetch hits and data prefetching is enabled for the data cache based on the tracking o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors MORROW, MICHAEL WILLIAM, DIEFFENDERFER, JAMES NORRIS
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
French
German
Published 14.01.2009
Subjects
CALCULATING
COMPUTING
COUNTING
ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
PHYSICS
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Summary:A system and method taught herein control data prefetching for a data cache by tracking prefetch hits and overall hits for the data cache. Data prefetching for the data cache is disabled based on the tracking of prefetch hits and data prefetching is enabled for the data cache based on the tracking of overall hits. For example, in one or more embodiments, a cache controller is configured to track a prefetch hit rate reflecting the percentage of hits on the data cache that involve prefetched data lines and disable data prefetching if the prefetch hit rate falls below a defined threshold. The cache controller also tracks an overall hit rate reflecting the overall percentage of data cache hits (versus misses) and enables data prefetching if the overall hit rate falls below a defined threshold.
Bibliography:Application Number: EP20080005493