Method and system for efficient cache locking mechanism

Abstract

Systems and methods for the implementation of more efficient cache locking mechanisms are disclosed. These systems and methods may alleviate the need to present both a virtual address (VA) and a physical address (PA) to a cache mechanism. A translation table is utilized to store both the address and the locking information associated with a virtual address, and this locking information is passed to the cache along with the address of the data. The cache can then lock data based on this information. Additionally, this locking information may be used to override the replacement mechanism used with the cache, thus keeping locked data in the cache. The translation table may also store translation table lock information such that entries in the translation table are locked as well.

1 . A method for efficient cache locking, comprising:
 providing a location for cache lock information in a translation table, wherein the location corresponds to an entry in a set of entries in the translation table; and   transmitting the cache lock information to a cache when a virtual address matches with the entry in the set of entries.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising providing a set of locations for cache lock information in the translation table, wherein each of the locations corresponds to an entry in the set of entries in the translation table. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 2 , comprising issuing an instruction referencing a virtual address 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , comprising synchronizing the context in response to the instruction. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 4 , comprising setting the cache lock information in the location corresponding to one entry in the set of entries in the translation table such that data corresponding to the one entry is locked in a cache if the virtual address corresponds to the one entry. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein locking the data in the cache comprises overriding the replacement policy of the cache based on the cache lock information. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the policy is a least recently used (LRU) policy. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 6 , comprising setting translation table lock information corresponding to the one of the set of the entries such that the entry is locked in the translation table. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8 , comprising setting the translation table lock information corresponding to the one of the set of entries such that the entry is unlocked in the translation table if the entry is invalidated. 
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 3 , comprising refilling the translation table if the virtual address does not correspond to any of the set of entries. 
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 3 , comprising generating an exception if the virtual address does not correspond to any of the set of entries.