US Patent 7111153 Early data return indication mechanism

A method, apparatus, and system are provided for early data return indication mechanism. According to one embodiment, data cache is accessed for data in response to a request for the data, the request received from an instruction source, and the request waits for the data to be retrieved from memory if the data is not located in the data cache, and an early data ready indication is received at a resource scheduler, the early data ready indication being received prior to receiving a data ready indication referring to the data being ready to be retrieved from the memory.