Patent ID: 7337278

Claim:
A method for memory management, the method comprising: receiving a notification of a cache fault from a cache device, the notification including a fault memory block and a fault memory line; determining if a tag corresponding to the fault memory block is present in a tag cache, wherein the tag includes prefetch bits corresponding to memory lines contained in a memory block specified by the tag; in response to not locating the tag corresponding to the fault memory block in the tag cache: fetching the tag corresponding to the fault memory block into the tag cache; prefetching the memory lines corresponding to the prefetch bits in the tag that are set to a prefetch status, said prefetching into the cache device; and resetting each of the prefetch bits which were set to a prefetch status to a nonprefetch status with a selected probability, wherein the selected probability is one eighth; and setting the prefetch bit corresponding to the fault memory line in the tag to the prefetch status.