18497170. BIT PATTERN MATCHING HARDWARE PREFETCHER simplified abstract (SiFive, Inc.)

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BIT PATTERN MATCHING HARDWARE PREFETCHER

Organization Name

SiFive, Inc.

Inventor(s)

Benoy Alexander of Cedar Park TX (US)

John Ingalls of Mountain View CA (US)

Binayak Tiwari of Las Vegas NV (US)

BIT PATTERN MATCHING HARDWARE PREFETCHER - A simplified explanation of the abstract

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 18497170 titled 'BIT PATTERN MATCHING HARDWARE PREFETCHER

Simplified Explanation: The patent application describes a hardware prefetcher that captures complex repeating patterns, allows out-of-order training, and confirmations. It includes multiple prefetch engines, each associated with zones, subzones, and cache lines. The prefetcher uses access maps to track demand requests and generate prefetch requests based on identified patterns.

  • The hardware prefetcher captures complex repeating patterns.
  • It allows out-of-order training and confirmations.
  • Multiple prefetch engines are used, each associated with zones, subzones, and cache lines.
  • Access maps track demand requests and update based on matching prefetch engines.
  • Patterns are determined from access maps after a defined number of demand requests.
  • Prefetch requests are generated based on the identified patterns.

Potential Applications: This technology can be applied in computer systems, servers, and data centers to improve memory access efficiency and overall system performance.

Problems Solved: - Enhances memory access efficiency. - Improves system performance by prefetching data based on identified patterns. - Allows for out-of-order training and confirmations.

Benefits: - Increased system performance. - Improved memory access efficiency. - Enhanced prefetching capabilities. - Optimized data retrieval.

Commercial Applications: The hardware prefetcher technology can be utilized in high-performance computing systems, cloud servers, and large-scale data processing applications to enhance overall system efficiency and performance.

Prior Art: No specific prior art information is provided in the abstract.

Frequently Updated Research: There is no information on frequently updated research related to this technology.

Questions about Hardware Prefetcher: 1. How does the hardware prefetcher improve memory access efficiency? 2. What are the potential commercial applications of this technology?


Original Abstract Submitted

Described herein is a bit pattern matching hardware prefetcher which captures complex repeating patterns, allows out-of-order (OOO) training, and allows OOO confirmations. The prefetcher includes a plurality of prefetch engines. Each prefetch engine is associated with a zone, each zone has a plurality of subzones, and each subzone has a plurality of cache lines. The prefetcher includes an access map for each subzone. Each bit position represents a cache line in the plurality of cache lines. The prefetcher determines whether a demand request matches one of the plurality of prefetch engines, updates, with respect to the demand request, a bit position in an access map for a subzone in a matching prefetch engine, determines a pattern from an access map for a subzone when a defined number of demand requests have been matched to the subzone; and generates a prefetch request based on at least the determined pattern.