Patent attributes
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.
