A Cache Line Fill Circuit for a Micropiplined, Asynchronous Microprocessor
Rahul Mehra and J.D. Garside
Abstract
In microprocessor architectures featuring on-chip cache the majority of
memory read operations are satisfied without external access. There is,
however, a significant penalty associated with cache misses which
require off-chip accesses when the processor is stalled for some or all
of the cache line refill time.
This paper investigates the magnitude of the penalties associated with
different cache line fetch schemes and demonstrates the desirability of
an independent, parallel line fetch mechanism. Such a mechanism for an
asynchronous microprocessor is then described. This resolves some
potentially complex interactions deterministically and automatically
provides a non-blocking mechanism similar to those in the most
sophisticated synchronous systems.
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