Review Board 2.0.15


Hammer protocol: Change how data to copied from L1 to L2 cache and vice-versa

Review Request #334 - Created Dec. 2, 2010 and submitted

Information
Nilay Vaish
gem5
Reviewers
Default
This patch changes the manner in which data is copied from L1 to L2 cache
in the implementation of the Hammer's cache coherence protocol. Earlier, 
data was copied directly from one cache entry to another. This has been
broken in to two parts. First, the data is copied from the source cache
entry to a transaction buffer entry. Then, data is copied from the
transaction buffer entry to the destination cache entry.

This has been done to maintain the invariant - at any given instant, a
multiple caches under a controller are exclusive with respect to each 
other.
The changes have been tested with ruby random tester using a single seed for 100,000 loads and number of processors = 1, 2, 4 and 8.
Posted (Jan. 4, 2011, 8:08 a.m.)
Hi Nilay,

These changes look good, but don't you also have to use a tbe entry as an intermediary for the L1_to_L2 transitions?

Brad
Ship it!
Posted (Jan. 4, 2011, 8:10 a.m.)
Nevermind my previous statement.  I needed to look closer.  Everything looks good to me.