Patent ID: 7412566

Claim:
A system for prefetching data in a memory system comprising: a link interface receiving memory requests for access to memory cells in at least one of a plurality of memory devices; a memory device interface coupled to the memory devices, the memory device interface being operable to transfer memory requests to the memory devices for access to memory cells in at least one of the memory devices and to receive read data responsive to at least some of the memory requests; and a prefetch circuit coupled to the link interface to receive memory requests from the link interface and coupled to the memory device interface to receive data from the memory cells, the prefetch circuit operable to predict addresses that are likely to be accessed in the memory devices based on the memory requests and to prefetch and store data from memory cells according to the predicted addresses, the prefetch circuit further operable to provide the prefetched data to the link interface responsive to subsequent memory requests, the prefetch circuit being configured to detect a pattern from which addresses to memory requests likely to be accessed are predicted, and to generate prefetch suggestions indicative of addresses corresponding to the predicted memory requests.