Patent ID: 7574564

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing a set associative cache having a plurality of sets, each of the plurality of sets having a plurality of ways, the set associative cache having a plurality of replacement pointers, each of the plurality of sets having a corresponding replacement pointer within the plurality of replacement pointers, the corresponding replacement pointer indicating a way of a corresponding set; providing a cache command which identifies a specified set of the plurality of sets and which identifies a replacement way value; in response to the cache command, replacing a current way value of the replacement pointer corresponding to the specified set with the replacement way value, the replacement way value indicating a different way of the specified set than the current way value; in response to a desired data value missing from a corresponding set of the cache, performing a cache line fill of a way of the corresponding set indicated by a corresponding replacement pointer; and after performing the cache line fill, locking the way of the corresponding set indicated by the corresponding replacement pointer.