Patent ID: 8131948

Claim:
A method of performing a snoop look-up operation in a system having a first cache and a first processor, wherein the first processor generates access requests to the first cache for data, comprising: performing snoop look-up operations in the first cache, wherein the snoop look-up operations are based on snoop requests from a snoop queue, and the snoop requests correspond to entries in the snoop queue; performing an access request from the first processor in response to a consecutive number of snoop look-up operations exceeding a first limit; loading the snoop queue with snoop requests, wherein a fullness of the snoop queue is a measure of how many snoop requests are in the snoop queue; determining if the fullness of the snoop queue exceeds a first threshold; and giving priority to the snoop requests over access requests in response to the fullness of the snoop queue exceeding the first threshold; wherein the step of performing an access request in response to a consecutive number of snoop look-up operations exceeding the first limit is performed even if the first threshold is exceeded.