Patent attributes
Facilitating page table entry (PTE) maintenance in processor-based devices is disclosed. In this regard, a processor-based device includes processing elements (PEs) configured to support two new coherence states: walker-readable (W) and modified walker accessible (MW). The W coherence state indicates that read access to a corresponding coherence granule by hardware table walkers (HTWs) is permitted, but all write operations and all read operations by non-HTW agents are disallowed. The MW coherence state indicates that cached copies of the coherence granule visible only to HTWs may exist in other caches. In some embodiments, each PE is also configured to support a special page table entry (SP-PTE) field store instruction for modifying SP-PTE fields of a PTE, indicating to the PE's local cache that the corresponding coherence granule should transition to the MW state, and indicating to remote local caches that copies of the coherence granule should update their coherence state.
