Abstract:
The present invention provides a mechanism whereby caching operations, such as prefetch and copyback operations, can be initiated by an external direct memory access (DMA) controller. This allows the DMA controller to govern the inclusion as well as exclusion of data from a processor cache in such as way as to avoid unnecessary cache faults, and to thereby improve system performance. Thus, the present invention effectively provides a synchronization mechanism between an external DMA controller and a processor cache.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]    This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to copending Provisional patent application Serial No. 60/049,079, filed Jun. 9, 1997, by inventors John H. Hughes and Chris M. Thomson, which application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.  
     
    
     
       BACKGROUND  
         [0002]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0003]    The present invention relates to computer systems that store instructions and data within a cache memory, and more particularly to a method for initiating cache prefetch and copyback operations through instructions issued by an external controller, such as a DMA controller.  
           [0004]    2. Related Art  
           [0005]    The performance of advanced microprocessors depends on high hit rates in their internal instruction and data caches. Network routing applications, for routing packets through a data network, have ideal characteristics for high instruction cache hit rate, but the flow-through nature of packet data makes the data cache hit rate low, because the data is often removed from the data cache when it is modified by the external interfaces and must be reloaded before a processor can access it.  
           [0006]    Microprocessors, such as the PowerPC 604e manufactured by the Motorola Corporation, include a 64 bit bus to interface with external memory and the I/O subsystem. This bus is optimized for moving data to and from the internal L 1  caches and for maintaining cache coherency amongst multiple processors. The 60x bus includes a control path to specify the bus operations between processors, including data transfer, cache coherency, and synchronization operations.  
           [0007]    The 604e processor can be clocked internally at four or more times the rate of its external interface. This results in a multiple cycle delay when the processor needs to access data from external memory. This delay is on top of the normal latency for memory accesses.  
           [0008]    Compilers can sometimes remove part of this delay for static memory references by moving a cache “load” instruction within a piece of executable code, so that there is more time between the load operation and the usage of the data retrieved by the load operation. However, for dynamic memory references, in which the location of a desired data item may not be known beforehand, this is more difficult, if not impossible.  
           [0009]    A special case that occurs frequently is a dynamically referenced structure within a loop where the (N+1)th memory address is known during the Nth loop iteration. The 604e processor includes cache prefetch instructions that can be used to bring the (N+1)th data into the cache while the Nth iteration is executing.  
           [0010]    When there is an interaction between the processor, the memory and an external DMA controller, the problem becomes yet more difficult. If the processor prefetch, either by compiler scheduling or explicit instruction, is moved too far from the usage of the prefetched data, the possibility exists that the DMA controller will modify the data in memory, thus, negating the advantage of the prefetch.  
           [0011]    What is needed is a mechanism that initiates prefetching of data, such as flow-through I/O data, into a processor cache.  
         SUMMARY  
         [0012]    The present invention provides a mechanism whereby caching operations, such as prefetch and copyback operations, can be initiated by an external direct memory access (DMA) controller. This allows the DMA controller to govern the inclusion as well as exclusion of data from a processor cache in such as way as to avoid unnecessary cache faults, and to thereby improve system performance. Thus, the present invention effectively provides a synchronization mechanism between an external DMA controller and the processor cache.  
           [0013]    The present invention can be characterized as a computing system, comprising: a processor including a cache; a memory coupled with the processor; a direct memory access device coupled with the processor and the memory; wherein the processor includes a mechanism that, in response to a command form the direct memory access device, potentially modifies an entry in the cache.  
           [0014]    The present invention may also be characterized as method for updating a cache, the method operating in a system including, a processor including the cache, a memory coupled with the processor, and a direct memory access device coupled with the processor and the memory, the method comprising the steps of: receiving at the processor a command from the direct memory access device; and in response to the command, potentially updating an entry in the cache.  
           [0015]    According to one aspect of the present invention, the above-mentioned method includes the step of modifying an entry within the memory.  
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES  
       [0016]    [0016]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of some of the major functional components of a computing system including DMA device  130  with cache instruction initiator  140  in accordance with an aspect of the present invention.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the functions of cache operations initiated by a DMA device, such as DMA device  130  in FIG. 1, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention.  
     
    
     DESCRIPTION  
       [0018]    The following description is presented to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention, and is provided in the context of a particular application and its requirements. Various modifications to the disclosed embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art and the general principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications without departing from the spirit and the scope of the present invention. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features disclosed herein.  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of some of the major functional components of a computing system, including DMA device  130  with cache instruction initiator  140  in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. FIG. 1 includes: processors  102 ,  104  and  106 ; caches  110 ,  112  and  114 ; bus  100 ; memory  120  and DMA device  130 . Processors  102 ,  104  and  106  may be any type of processor system, including processors comprised of multiple chips as well as single-chip microprocessor systems. Caches  110 ,  112  and  114  are coupled to processors  102 ,  104  and  106 , respectively. Caches  110 ,  112  and  114  contain instruction and/or data used by processors  102 ,  104  and  106 , respectively. Caches  110 ,  112 , and  114  are coupled to bus  100 , which is also coupled to memory  120 . Memory  120  is any type of memory for storing instructions and data used by processors  102 ,  104  and  106 . In one embodiment, memory  120  includes semiconductor memory. In another embodiment, memory  120  includes a magnetic storage device such as a disk drive. Bus  100  is also coupled to DMA device  130 , which is any type of I/O device, such as a disk drive controller or a network interface controller, that can directly transfer data to and/or from memory  120 . DMA device  130  includes cache instruction initiator  140 , which is a mechanism within DMA device  130  that initiates certain instructions, such as prefetch and copyback instructions for caches  110 ,  112  and  114 .  
         [0020]    The embodiment of the computing system in FIG. 1 includes a plurality of processors and a plurality of caches. These processors and caches comprise a multiprocessor system in which the caches are kept coherent with one another through a cache coherence mechanism. This cache coherence mechanism may include additional cache coherence control lines within bus  100 .  
         [0021]    Another embodiment of the present invention operates in a computing system including only a single processor coupled through at least one cache to bus  100 . In this embodiment, no cache coherence maintenance is required.  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the functions of cache operations initiated by a DMA device, such as DMA device  130  in FIG. 1, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the four operations initiated by the DMA controller are: (1) write demand, (2) read demand, (3) write clearance, and (4) read clearance. Schematically, the four operations have twelve interactions with the processor cache as are illustrated in FIG. 2. The three starting cache states are: (1) invalid, which means data is absent from cache; (2) clean, which means data is unmodified in cache; and (3) dirty, which means data has been modified in cache, but the modifications have not been flushed back to memory  120 . The three ending cache states are: (1) invalid; (2) clean, which means existing data is unmodified in cache; and (3) clean(new), which means new data is unmodified in cache.  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 2 illustrates the bus commands that cause the cache state transitions. The abbreviation WWRTC is short for “write with request to cache.” The abbreviation RWRTC is short for “read with request to cache.” Four of the operations have an additional “+ARTRY” This indicates that the processor will respond to the initial bus command with an address retry. This response causes the DMA controller to repeat the bus command after allowing the processor to copy the modified data back to memory  120 .  
         [0024]    The write demand operation is used to place data directly into the processor cache as it is written to memory by DMA controller  130 . In one embodiment, the data is written into caches  110 ,  120  and  130  at the same time is it being written into memory  120 . Caches  110 ,  112  and  114  simply pull the data off of bus  100  as it passes from DMA device  130  to memory  120 . Once the data is written in to caches  110 ,  112  and  114 , it is marked “clean” and can be shared between multiple processors. If there exists a dirty entry in one of the caches, the DMA device must wait for the dirty entry to be copied back to memory  120  before proceeding with the WWRTC operation.  
         [0025]    The read demand operation is the complement of the write demand operation and can be thought of as an externally triggered cache prefetch instruction. The read demand operation operates in the same way as the write demand operation, except that data is read from memory  120  by DMA device  130 , instead of being written to memory  120  by DMA device  130 .  
         [0026]    The write clearance operation is used to force the cache to move specific modified data back to memory  120  so that DMA controller  130  can complete a subsequent write to memory without incurring processor copyback latency. If the entry exists in a cache and it is dirty, it is first flushed back to cache. Then the entry is removed from cache by marking the cache entry as invalid.  
         [0027]    The read clearance operation is the complement of the write clearance operation, and is used prior to a DMA read to insure that memory is consistent with all the processor caches, allowing immediate memory read access. If the entry exists in cache it is flushed back and the entry is marked clean. Otherwise, the entry is not modified.  
         [0028]    One embodiment of the present invention includes one or multiple processor identifiers with the above-described commands issued by DMA device  130 . Only the caches corresponding to the processor identifiers respond to the command.  
         [0029]    In one embodiment, a processor configures or commands DMA controller  130  to perform the above-mentioned commands. In another embodiment, DMA controller  130  itself initiates the commands. In yet another embodiment, DMA controller  130  queues the commands into a descriptor list, which DMA controller  130  sequentially executes.  
         [0030]    In the particular case of network data processing, DMA controller  130  uses a mix of these commands. The routing information that is required by the processor is contained in a known portion of the packet header. DMA controller  130  uses the WWRTC command to move that data to memory so that the processor cache would have it ready for processing. The remaining data in the packet could be moved to memory using an ordinary write command if it did not need processing. DMA controller  130  can precede the whole sequence of writes to memory with a series of Read clearance or Write clearance operations to eliminate the “+ARTRY” operations. This could be done when the DMA descriptors are programmed.  
         [0031]    A more advanced application of this technique is the general ‘push’ function. An example is status transfer between the external hardware and the processor. There are two methods for synchronizing the external data flow and the processor internal software: interrupts and polling. Polling continuously reads the state of an external register testing for a change of value. Interrupts cause an asynchronous change in program flow as a result of the assertion of an external signal. Polling is lighter weight (has less impact on the software), but causes more bus activity. If the status register is cached, the processor will ‘spin’ reading the value in the cache and generating no external bus cycles. When the status value changes the external hardware generates WWRTC data transfer cycle which causes the cache to be updated and causes the software to ‘see’ the new value. In this case the memory transfer is fictitious since the value is only stored in a hardware register that has already been updated.  
         [0032]    The foregoing description of embodiments of the invention have been presented for purposes of illustration and description only. They are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the forms disclosed. Obviously, many modifications and variations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in the art.