Patent ID: 7434001

Claim:
A method of accessing cache for parallel processors, and the method comprising: (a) providing a processor and a lower level memory unit, wherein the processor has multiple instruction processing members and a higher lever memory unit with multiple sub-cache memories corresponding respectively to the instruction processing members; (b) using a first instruction processing member to access a first sub-cache memory corresponding to the first instruction processing member for a block of desire data; (c) accessing one of the sub-cache memories other than the first sub-cache memories until the desired data is accessed in a second sub-cache memory when the desired data is not accessible in the first sub-cache memory; and (d) accessing the lower level memory until the desired data is accessed when the desired data is not accessible in the sub-cache memories; (e) loading the desired data accessed from the lower level memory unit to one of the sub-cache memories according to a pre-determined order when a cache miss happens, and the pre-determined order comprising first, loading the accessed desired data in a dead cache line in the first sub-cache memory; second, loading the accessed desired data in a dead cache line in one of the sub-cache memories other than the first sub-cache memory; and third, loading the accessed desired data in a given reference in the first sub-cache memory according to a pre-determined rule.