Patent ID: 7120748

Claim:
A system for managing cache replacement eligibility, comprising: a first address register configured to request an address from an L1 cache; an L1 cache configured to determine whether a requested address is in the L1 cache and, in response to a determination that a requested address is not in the L1 cache, further configured to transmit the requested address to a range register coupled to the L1 cache; the range register configured to generate a class identifier in response to a received requested address and to transmit the requested address and class identifier to a replacement management table coupled to the range register; the replacement management table configured to generate L2 tag replacement control indicia in response to a received requested address and class identifier; an L2 address register coupled to the first address register and configured to request an address from an L2 cache; an L2 cache coupled to the L2 address register and the replacement management table and configured to determine whether a requested address is in the L2 cache and further configured to assign replacement eligibility of at least one set of cache lines in the L2 cache in response to received L2 tag replacement control indicia; and in response to a determination that a requested address is not in the L2 cache, the L2 cache further configured to overwrite a cache line within a set of the L2 cache as a function of the replacement eligibility.