🚀 go-pugleaf

I received a rather complete explanation written by John Mashey and
apparently posted to comp.arch about 18 months ago.


Summary:
--------

Writes go to a store buffer (2 deep) where they are held until free cache
cycles.

Subsequent stores only use the cache tag RAM - not the cache data RAM, thus
data is retired from the store buffer during later stores at the same rate
that data enters the store buffer - therefore, the store buffer never
overflows.  Of course, the store buffer also empties during non-memory
operations.

Accesses to data still in the store buffer can cause a stall.

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Andrew Wolfe
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering
Princeton University