Patent ID: 7493452

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for accessing data, comprising: receiving a global address for the data as part of a pre-fetch instruction for pre-fetching the data into a software cache data structure stored in a local memory of a processor of the data processing system; performing one or more operations to ensure that the data is present in the software cache data structure in response to receiving the global address as part of the pre-fetch instruction; storing a local address corresponding to the global address in a cache local address plus offset (CLAPO) storage device associated with the software cache data structure, wherein the local address comprises a pointer to a cache line in the software cache data structure where the data is stored and an offset within the cache line; receiving a use instruction for using the data, the use instruction specifying the global address for the data; determining if the local address corresponding to the global address specified by the use instruction is present in the CLAPO storage device; retrieving the local address from the CLAPO storage device if the local address is present in the CLAPO storage; directly accessing the data in the software cache data structure using the local address without performing a software cache hit check operation in response to the local address being retrieved from the CLAPO storage device, wherein the global address is in a global address space of a global storage device associated with the data processing system, and wherein the local address is in a local address space of the local memory associated with the processor of the data processing system.