Patent ID: 7472226

Claim:
A method for accessing data in memory, the method comprising: receiving address bits associated with a data item including a first tag, an index, and a sector ID from a requestor; associating the index with a congruence class in a primary directory; determining whether the first tag matches a second tag in a plurality of tags in the congruence class, wherein the each tag of the plurality of tags uniquely identifies a cache line associated with a primary ID in the congruence class; determining the primary ID of the second tag of the primary directory that matches the first tag responsive to determining that the first tag matches the second tag in a plurality of tags in the congruence class; determining whether the primary ID and the sector ID are present in a secondary directory entry having a one to one correspondence with a sector in a data array; and sending the data item from the sector to the requestor responsive to determining that the primary ID and the sector ID are present in the secondary directory entry.