FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The invention relates to multi-threaded processors, and in particular to the problem of data incoherency between a cache memory accessed by multiple threads and the main memory in a multi-threaded processor. 
       BACKGROUND TO THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    A multi-threaded processor is capable of processing multiple different instruction sequences (or threads) simultaneously. During execution of a thread data and instructions need to be accessed from memory. Different threads may therefore need to access memory, and sometimes the same portion of memory, simultaneously. There therefore needs to be some arbitration between threads for memory access. 
         [0003]    A multi-threaded processor typically has an instruction cache and a data cache containing the most commonly accessed data and instructions, as shown in  FIG. 1 . If the required data or instructions are not found in the caches then access to the memory on the memory bus must be requested. Access to the memory has to be controlled to ensure threads do not conflict with each other. For this reason, memory accesses from different threads from the instruction and data caches each have their own dedicated data path up to the memory arbiter module. 
         [0004]      FIG. 1  is a schematic illustration of a memory access system in a multi-threaded processor in accordance with the prior art. Threads running on the processor core  10  can request data and instructions from the data and instruction caches  11 ,  12 . The instruction and data caches each have memory management units associated with them. If the requested data or instructions are not in one of the caches, the request is passed to the memory bus. In order to arbitrate between requests from different thread the requests are routed first through a thread arbiter  13 ,  14 , which orders the requests for that thread, and then a memory arbiter  15 , which controls access to the memory bus. 
         [0005]    Within the main memory, data is typically stored and accessible in units of a fixed number of bits, called cache lines. So, in order to read a memory address from the memory, the entire cache line containing that address must be fetched. There are two types of cache line. One type is a local cache line that only stores data for a particular thread. The other is a global cache line that stores data accessible by different threads. Whether a piece of data is stored within a global or local cache line depends on its linear address. The present invention is concerned with memory resources that are shared between threads, i.e. global cache lines. 
         [0006]    A global cache line might store the values of software local variables entered by different threads in different word positions within the cache line. It is expected that when a thread Tx reads its local variable from the cache line it would get back its last written value. However, situations can arise when using write through data caches in which accesses by the other threads to their local variables within the same cache line cause the thread Tx to read an old and wrong value. When this happens Tx is said to have become “data incoherent”. 
         [0007]      FIGS. 2   a  and  2   b  each illustrate an example sequence of accesses by different is threads causing data incoherence on thread T 0 . 
         [0008]    Referring to  FIG. 2   a , T 0  first accesses its local variable, A, with a write request. T 1  then accesses its local variable, B, with a read request. The physical addresses of A and B are such that they are cached within the same global data cache line. Initially both A and B are not in the cache. 
         [0009]    Read requests typically take less time to reach the memory bus than write requests. In this case, the T 1  read reaches the memory before the T 0  write. As a result, an old value of the cache line is stored in the data cache. The T 0  write request does not write to the data cache, only to the memory bus. So, subsequent reads of the cache line from the data cache will fetch the old values that are stored in the data cache as a result of the T 1  read. 
         [0010]    Referring to  FIG. 2   b , once again A and B are both in the same cache line, and initially not in the data cache. T 1  first accesses B from the memory bus with a read request. Before B is fetched, i.e. between the time the read request leaves the data cache and the time the cache line containing B is stored in the data cache, a write request for A is issued to the memory bus from T 0 . Again, the write from T 0  is not written to the data cache, so the data cache retains an old version of the cache line, which will be accessed by subsequent read requests. 
         [0011]    As can be seen, when multiple threads access global cache memory from the memory bus, data incoherency can arise particularly write-through caches. This invention aims to address this problem by detecting the incoherency hazard and using a mechanism to ensure that read or write instructions are only issued out of the memory bus when it is safe to do so. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0012]    The present invention is defined in the appended independent claims. Preferred features are defined in the dependent claims. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]    Examples of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: 
           [0014]      FIG. 1  illustrates the memory access system in a conventional multi-threaded processor core; 
           [0015]      FIGS. 2   a  and  2   b  each illustrate a sequence of memory accesses resulting in cache incoherency; 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  schematically illustrates a system in accordance with the present invention; 
           [0017]      FIG. 4  illustrates the operation of an example global write address memory in accordance with the invention 
           [0018]      FIG. 5  illustrates an incoherency detection module for use in the system of  FIG. 3 ; 
           [0019]      FIG. 6  illustrates a memory arbiter for use in the system of  FIG. 3 ; and 
           [0020]      FIG. 7  illustrates order enforcement at the arbiter. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0021]    As illustrated in  FIGS. 2   a  and  2   b , data incoherency can arise as a result of different circumstances, which can be dealt with differently. The incoherency illustrated by  FIG. 2   a  can be avoided using a first mechanism and the incoherency illustrated by  FIG. 2   b  can be avoided using a second mechanism. 
         [0022]      FIG. 3  is a schematic illustration of a system in accordance with a first aspect of the present invention.  FIG. 3  illustrates a system for accessing data from the memory bus that avoids the data incoherency that can arise from the situation described with reference to  FIG. 2   a . As the invention is concerned with data incoherency, and hence access to data, the paths for instruction fetches from the memory bus have been omitted for clarity. 
         [0023]    The system comprises a data cache memory management unit  30  connected to the processor core, thread arbiters  31 ,  32  connected to the memory management unit and a memory arbiter  33  connected between the thread arbiters and a memory bus. 
         [0024]    Within the data cache memory management unit is the data cache itself  34  and an associated memory management function for address translation etc., as well as an incoherency detection module. 
         [0025]    As in the system shown in  FIG. 1 , in the system of  FIG. 2 , when a thread executing on the processor core issues a read or write request, the request is routed to the data cache MMU  30 . For a read request, if the data is in the data cache  34  it is fetched and used immediately. If it is not in the data cache, the memory on the memory bus must be accessed. For a write request in a write-through cache, the write request always accesses the memory bus. The memory management unit (MMU) function associated with the data cache will convert the virtual memory address used by the program running on the processor into a physical memory address on the memory bus. 
         [0026]    In one aspect of the invention, an incoherency detection module  35  is provided in order to deal with incoherency resulting from global read requests and global write requests. The terms “global write request” and “global read request” as used herein mean a request to a portion of memory shared by multiple threads. Global read and write requests from the data cache  34  must first pass through the incoherency detection module  35  before reaching the memory arbiter  33  and then the memory bus. An incoherency detection module is illustrated in more detail in  FIG. 5 . 
         [0027]    The incoherency detection module has three functions. One is to maintain a record of the physical addresses of previous global write requests. Another is to compare the address of any incoming global read with the record of previous write requests to decide whether there are past writes to the same global cache line. The last is to use the comparison information to add an ‘order enforcement sideband’ to each request (or insert separate ‘barrier requests’) so the memory arbiter  33  can enforce an order for issuing requests to the memory bus as intended by the incoherency detection module  35 . This mechanism does not stall or throttle data low through the various modules before the memory arbiter, which would cause performance degradation. 
         [0028]    To keep a record of the individual physical addresses of all previous global cache writes would require an infinite amount of memory, which is not practical to implement. An alternative is to compress the individual addresses of global write requests into ranges of addresses instead. In this embodiment, the incoherency detection module includes a Global Write Address Memory (GWAM) for each thread. Each GWAM consists of a small number of data storage slots, each storing a non-overlapping address range. 
         [0029]      FIG. 4  illustrates how an example GWAM in accordance with the present invention operates.  FIG. 4   a  shows a GWAM having four memory slots. The memory slots are initially empty. Each memory slot has four fields: a valid flag field, a 32-bit byte address field (TAG), an upper address range size mask (MU) and a lower address range size bit mask (ML). 
         [0030]    The valid flag simply indicates whether a recorded write address is within the memory slot. The TAG field indicates an address within the range of memory addresses covered by the slot. 
         [0031]    The MU and ML fields define the memory address range covered by the slot. For the address range covered, the lower address=TAG &amp;&amp; (MU &amp; ML), where &amp;&amp; represents a bit AND operation and &amp; represent vector concatenation. The upper address =TAG∥!(MU &amp; ML), where ∥ represents a bit OR operation. For example, using hexadecimal notation, for TAG =0xAAAAAA34, ML=0xFFFF00, MU=0xFF, the Address range =0xAAAAAA00 to 0xAAAAAAFF. 
         [0032]    When a first write address is recorded it is assigned to a memoryslot in GWAM. This is illustrated in  FIG. 4   b . Since all the slots are empty prior to this, there is no need to compress the data. Sothe write address, in this case 0xB1000000, is stored in the first slot with a minimum address range. 
         [0033]    When a second write address 0xA0000000 is to be stored in GWAM, it is stored in the second slot, again with minimum range. This is shown in  FIG. 4   c.    
         [0034]    When a third write address is issued that could fall within an address range defined by the MU field of another slot, it is placed in that slot and the ML field altered to accommodate the new address.  FIG. 4   d  illustrates this. In  FIG. 4   d , the new write request is to address 0xB1000004. As this address can be compacted into the first slot by changing the value of ML (and leaving is MU unchanged), it is compacted into the first slot. 
         [0035]      FIGS. 4   e  and  4   f  illustrate the addition of two more write request addresses, 0x80000000 and 0x90000000 which cannot be compacted into existing slots. After the addition of these addresses, all the slots are being used. 
         [0036]      FIG. 4   g  shows the subsequent addition of a new request address 0xC0000000. As this address cannot be compacted into any slots, and all the slots are full, all of the existing slots are compacted into one range, in the first slot. There are then three slots available for incoming write request addresses. 
         [0037]    This GWAM arrangement allows sufficient information about write addresses to be stored in a small memory. It can lead to some barriers being inserted without being necessary, but in practice this compromise does not substantially affect performance. 
         [0038]      FIG. 5  shows the component parts of the incoherency detection module of  FIG. 3 . Upon receiving a request from thread Tx the incoherency detection module first determines at block  500  if it is a read request or a write request to a global cache line. 
         [0039]    If it is a global write request, the GWAM for thread Tx is updated as described with reference to  FIG. 4 . 
         [0040]      FIG. 5  shows the memory and registers maintained by the incoherency detection module for each thread, in block  510 . The GWAM is shown as block  515 . Also included is: a buffer count register  520 , which is a record of the number of requests queued for that thread in FIFO  580 , waiting to be passed to the memory arbiter; a last barrier buffer empty (LB_buff_empty) register  525  that takes a value of 1 or 0 and indicates if any requests have been passed from the data cache for that thread since the last barrier for that thread; and a request ID (req_id) that provides an identification value for each request in FIFO  580 . 
         [0041]    If it is a global read request from thread Tx, the request is passed to a comparator unit  530 . The comparator unit  530  checks to see if the memory address of the global read request falls within an address range in any of the GWAMs of other threads. 
         [0042]    If the read request address does not fall within an address range in the GWAM of another thread, then the read request can be passed to the memoryarbiter without the insertion of any barrier flags or barrier requests. 
         [0043]    However, if the read request address does fall within a stored address range of a GWAM of another thread (which will be referred to as a matching thread herein), the request is passed to block  540 , which determines the value of the LB_buff_empty register for each matching thread. If the LB_buff 13  empty register has a value 0 for a matching thread (i.e. if no requests are queued for that thread since the last barrier was inserted) then no further barrier need be inserted. However, if the LB_buff 13  empty register has a value 1 for a matching thread, then a barrier must be inserted for that thread, in order to prevent incoherency problems arising. 
         [0044]    There are two ways in which a barrier can be inserted. A barrier can be inserted as sideband data attached to an existing request or it can be inserted as a separate “barrier request” comprising a new request with attached sideband data. If there are requests queued in FIFO  580  for the thread in question, then the barrier is added to the last request in the FIFO as sideband data. If there are no queued requests for that thread in the FIFO  580 , then there is nothing to attach the barrier sideband data to. In that case, the barrier must take the form of a new barrier request with attached barrier sideband data. So at block  545 , the incoherency detection module determines if the buffer count for each matching thread is equal to 0 or not. 
         [0045]    If the buffer count is equal to 0 then the barrier is inserted as a new barrier request. This is indicated at block  565 . At the same time, sideband data, referred to as block check data, is added to the read request and a time stamp, which is appended to each request is incremented or toggled. The block check data includes the thread ID of every matching thread for which barriers have been inserted. The requests are then queued in the per-thread FIFOs  580  until they can be issued to the memory arbiter. The term “time-stamp” is used herein to mean a piece of data related to time, which, when changed, marks a new time period. In a preferred embodiment, the time stamp is a one-bit field that can take on a value of 0 or 1. 
         [0046]    If the buffer count is not equal to 0 for a matching thread for which a barrier is to be inserted, the barrier is attached as sideband data to the last request in FIFO  580 . However, the barrier sideband data cannot be added until after the request has exited FIFO  580 . A back-end barrier insert FIFO  550  is therefore provided for each thread. This FIFO  550  stores the thread ID of the request to which the barrier is to be appended, together with the barrier data itself, including the ID of the corresponding global read request. 
         [0047]    Following all of the checks described, the read and write requests for each thread are queued in per thread request FIFOs  580 . A multiplex function  570  is shown in  FIG. 5  to illustrate that the requests and barriers are routed to the appropriate thread FIFO  580 . The arrow from block  565  indicates a barrier request for insertion. The arrow from the top of the Figure indicated the read and write requests that are added into the per-thread FIFOs via the multiplexer  570 . So, if a barrier is to be inserted as a separate barrier request it is queued in the correct thread request FIFO, Mile the corresponding read request is queued in its thread request FIFO. 
         [0048]    A back-end barrier insert check stage  560  is provided at the exit of each request FIFO  580 . Every request leaving FIFO  580  is checked against the first entry in the corresponding back-end barrier insert FIFO  550 . When there is a match, the sideband data is appended to the request before being sent on to the memory arbiter. 
         [0049]    When a barrier, either as sideband data or as a separate barrier request, is included in a request queue, the GWAM for that thread is flushed. All entries in the GWAM can be erased as there is no longer any incoherency hazard associated with those memory address entries. 
         [0050]    In summary, to support the order enforcement, the incoherency detection module performs the following steps when an incoming read address falls within one of the GWAM address range slots:
       1) Issue barrier request for the threads that need one   2) Assign appropriate block check sideband data to the read request   3) Toggle the internal 1-bit time stamp which is attached to every read/write   4) Flush the GWAM of the threads that have barrier requests issued.       
 
         [0055]      FIG. 6  illustrates the functional hardware blocks of an order enforcement memory arbiter in accordance with this embodiment. 
         [0056]    The memory arbiter maintains a barrier status register  600  and current time stamp register  605 . The barrier status register  600  indicates whether and from which threads barriers have been issued through the thread arbiter  610 . The barrier status register is cleared every time the internal time stamp of the memory arbiter is incremented or toggled. The internal time stamp is incremented or toggled every time a read request having block check sideband data is issued by the thread arbiter. The time stamp register is simply a record of the current time stamp value. 
         [0057]    It is first determined at block  615  if a request arriving from the incoherency detection module is a global read request with block check sideband data. If it is a global read request with block check sideband data, at block  620  the memory arbiter reads the barrier data in the block check sideband data and checks it against the barrier status register to determine if the associated barriers have all been issued by the thread arbiter  610 . If all the associated barriers have been issued, the global read request is released to the thread arbiter. If not all associated barriers have been issued by the thread arbiter, the global read request is blocked at the input of the memory arbiter. These checks are repeated until the global read request can be released. 
         [0058]    If the request is not a global read request, with block check sideband data at block  625  its time stamp is compared with the internal time stamp value stored is in the current time stamp register. If the time stamps match, the request is released to the thread arbiter. If the time stamps do not match, the request is blocked. This time stamp check is repeated until the time stamps match and the request is released. 
         [0059]    The thread arbiter  610  receives released requests for all threads and uses an arbitration technique, such as a round robin technique, to arbitrate between threads for access to the memory bus. Any desired metric may be used in the thread arbiter to arbitrate between threads. 
         [0060]    When requests including barriers, (or separate barrier requests) and global read requests with block check sideband data are issued by the thread arbiter, the barrier status register and time stamp register are updated as described above and illustrated in  FIG. 6 . The requests are checked for global read requests with block check sideband data and for barriers at block  630  and  635 . If a barrier is detected the barrier status register is updated at block  640 . If a global read request with block check sideband data is detected, the barrier status register is cleared and the internal timestamp in the timestamp register is toggled at block  645 . 
         [0061]    The overall effect is that any request that follows an offending read will not be issued by the memory arbiter until all memory requests from all threads before it have been issued. GWAM contents can be erased for the threads that have barrier requests issued since the enforcement mechanism has ensured no future incoming request can overtake them. 
         [0062]    Referring to the example sequence of  FIG. 2   a , when the T 1 _Read_to_C 1  is presented to the detection module input, a match from the GWAM would cause the following actions by the detection module:
       Insert a barrier request, T 0 _Bar_T 1 , to the other non-requesting thread T 0 . The barrier request has a sideband data of thread ID T 1 , indicating that it is a barrier request caused by a T 1  global read.   Set block check values of T 1 _Read_to_C 1  to ‘wait until barrier from T 0 ’.   Increment the Time-Stamp flag for future requests after the global cache read.       
 
         [0066]    The memory arbiter decodes those order enforcement sideband values and takes the appropriate action:
       Not stall barrier request T 0 _Bar_T 1  and update the Barrier Issue Status Register when issued out to the memory bus.   Hold on to T 1 _Read_to_C 1  until Barrier Issue Status Register indicates T 0 _Bar_T 1  has been issued. The arbiter updates its own current time-stamp register after the T 1 _Read_to_C 1  is issued. The issue of T 0 _Bar_T 1  implies all requests prior to T 1 _Read_to_C 1 , including the offending write from T 0 , T 0 _Write_to_C 1  has been issued.   For those ‘safe’ requests of T 0 _Write_to_C 3  and T 1 _Read_to_C 4  compare the arbiter current time-stamp register with the time-stamp values and only issue when the time-stamp values match.       
 
         [0070]      FIG. 7  illustrates such order enforcement process and outcomes by the memory arbiter. The initial stream of requests from the data cache is shown at the top of  FIG. 7  as stream  70 . The requests are separated into per thread streams and barriers and sideband data inserted by the incoherency detection module as described and shown in the centre of  FIG. 7  entering thread arbiter  73  as streams  71  and  72 . At the bottom of  FIG. 7 , the ordered stream of requests  74  sent to the memory bus is shown. 
         [0071]    The incoherency hazard illustrated in  FIG. 2   b  can be addressed using a different mechanism. The data cache contains a TAG RAM storing the physical addresses of the cache lines in the DATA RAM of the data cache. When the data cache receives a read request that misses in the data cache, an entry from the TAG RAM is chosen to store the physical address information of the cache line to be fetched by the read request. A filling flag can be added to this physical address information in the TAG RAM, which indicates that that portion of the RAM has been set aside for the cache line currently being fetched. The filling flag takes the value 1 when the cache line is being fetched and  0  when there is no cache line being fetched. 
         [0072]    When there are subsequent writes from other threads to the same or different locations within the same cache line, while the filling flag has a value 1, another flag in the TAG RAM is set for that cache line, referred to as the “dirty flag”. When the dirty flag has a value 1 it indicates that there is a potential incoherency hazard because one thread is modifying the cache line that is currently being fetched, and so there is no guarantee that the data eventually put in the data cache will be the most up-to-date data. When the dirty flag is 1, the cache line is considered invalid as its data cannot be trusted. In this case, subsequent read requests will ignore the data in the data cache and will fetch the up-to-date data from the main memory. 
         [0073]    The following sequence illustrates this mechanism for the situation illustrated in  FIG. 2   b.    
         [0074]    T 1  reads B. Since B is not in the data cache, data cache MMU fetches the cache line containing B from the memory bus. A TAG field in the TAG RAM is updated and filling flag is set to 1 and dirty flag is set to 0. 
         [0075]    T 0  writes to A with data 0X10. Although A is not in the cache, filling flag in the RAM indicates that the cache line is currently being filled. The dirty flag is therefore set to 1. 
         [0076]    T 1  cache line fetch done. The cache line in the data cache contains the old value of A from the main memory, as a result of the read request. 
         [0077]    T 0  read A. Although the Tag RAM content indicates a cache hit, because the data cache contains cache line including A, the dirty flag is set to 1 for that cache line. The hardware then decides that this read misses in the cache, and the line is fetched again from the memory bus. Since this read occurs after the T 0  write, the read returns the latest value of A and data coherency is maintained. 
         [0078]    The combination of the two mechanisms, the first dealing with scenarios as illustrated by  FIG. 2   a  and the second dealing with scenarios as illustrated by  FIG. 2   b , provides a solution to data incoherency occurring as a result of cache misses in write through data caches.
There is provided an apparatus for controlling memory access in a multithreaded processor supporting a plurality of threads, comprising: a processor core; a cache memory storing data accessible by each of the plurality of threads; a main memory storing data accessible by a plurality of threads; an incoherency detection module; and a memory arbiter, wherein the incoherency detection module is connected between the processor core and the memory arbiter, and the memory arbiter is connected between the incoherency detection module and the main memory and wherein there is a separate request queue for each thread for read and write requests sent from the cache memory to the memory arbiter; wherein, in use, the incoherency detection module stores an indication of a memory address for each write request sent from the cache memory to the main memory in a write address memory, and compares the address of each subsequent read request sent from the cache memory with indications in the write address memory and, if the address of the subsequent read request matches an indication, inserts a barrier corresponding to the read request into the request queue of the thread to which the matching indication belongs, and wherein the memory arbiter prevents the read request from accessing the memory bus until the corresponding barrier has been received by the memory arbiter.