Compaq ECQD2KCTE manual Write Hint, Software Note

Models: ECQD2KCTE

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4.11.10 Write Hint

Format:

WH64

(Rb.ab)

! Memory format

Operation:

va Rbv

IF { va maps to memory space } THEN

Write UNPREDICTABLE data to the aligned 64-byte region containing the addressed byte.

END

Exceptions:

None

Instruction mnemonics:

WH64

Write Hint - 64 Bytes

Qualifiers:

None

Description:

The WH64 instruction provides a hint that the current contents of the aligned 64-byte block containing the addressed byte will never be read again but will be overwritten in the near future.

The processor may allocate cache resources to hold the block without reading its previous con- tents from memory; the contents of the block may be set to any value that does not introduce a security hole, as described in Section 1.6.3.

The WH64 instruction does not generate exceptions; if it encounters data address translation errors (access violation, translation not valid, and so forth), it is treated as a NOP.

If the address maps to non-memory-like (I/O) space, WH64 is treated as a NOP.

Software Note:

This instruction is a performance hint that should be used when writing a large continuous region of memory. The intended code sequence consists of one WH64 instruction followed by eight quadword stores for each aligned 64-byte region to be written.

Sometimes, the UNPREDICTABLE data will exactly match some or all of the previous contents of the addressed block of memory.

Instruction Descriptions 4–145

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Compaq ECQD2KCTE manual Write Hint, Software Note