Patent ID: 7278008
Filing Date: 2007-10-02
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An address translation cache for translating virtual addresses to physical addresses, the address translation cache comprising: a local cluster store configured to store a plurality of clusters, wherein each cluster provides a mapping to physical addresses for a range of virtual addresses, the respective ranges mapped by different ones of the clusters having different sizes, wherein each cluster includes a plurality of references to blocks of physical addresses such that the virtual addresses in the range mapped by the cluster are mapped to the blocks of physical addresses; a tag store configured to store a tag corresponding to each of the clusters in the local cluster store, wherein each tag encodes the range of virtual addresses mapped by the corresponding cluster; a lookup logic circuit coupled to the tag store and the local cluster store, the lookup logic circuit being configured to signal a cache hit in the event that a target virtual address is within the range of virtual addresses encoded by a matching one of the tags in the tag store and to signal a cache miss otherwise.