Patent ID: 8230179

Claim:
A method of administering non-cacheable memory load instructions in a computing environment where cacheable data is produced and consumed in a coherent manner without harming performance of a producer, the environment comprising a hierarchy of computer memory that includes one or more caches backed by main memory, the caches controlled by a cache controller, at least one of the caches configured as a write-back cache, the method comprising: receiving, by the cache controller from a consumer, a non-cacheable memory load instruction for data stored at a memory address, the data treated by the producer as cacheable; determining by the cache controller from a cache directory whether the data is cached; if the data is cached, returning the data in the memory address from the write-back cache without affecting the write-back cache's state; and if the data is not cached, returning the data from main memory without affecting the write-back cache's state.