Article View: comp.arch
Article #20438Re: i860 CPU information
From: Andrew Klossner
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1989 23:02
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1989 23:02
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"Still on the subject of the caches: There is no way
to externally invalidate cache lines. This makes the
part virtually unusable in multi-processing
configurations, since cache coherency cannot be
maintained."
"Invalidating cache lines externally is not an absolute
requirement for using caches in a multi-processor environment.
There are policies that do not require this feature at all."
Furthermore, you can achieve the necessary effect by sending the other
CPU a message telling it to invalidate its cache lines. If exception
handling (get in, do it, get out) is fast enough, and if you don't do
this every few nanoseconds, then the performance degradation shouldn't
be a big deal.
You don't absolutely need an external invalidation signal in hardware
for multiprocesisng.
-=- Andrew Klossner (uunet!tektronix!orca!frip!andrew) [UUCP]
(andrew%frip.wv.tek.com@relay.cs.net) [ARPA]
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekecs!frip!andrew From: andrew@frip.wv.tek.com (Andrew Klossner) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: i860 CPU information Message-ID: <11170@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM> Date: 21 Mar 89 23:02:40 GMT References: <1895@oakhill.UUCP> <21570@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Sender: andrew@tekecs.GWD.TEK.COM Distribution: usa Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon Lines: 23