Chapter 5
System Architecture and Programming
Implications
5.1 Introduction
Portions of the Alpha architecture have implications for programming, and the system struc- ture, of both uniprocessor and multiprocessor implementations. Architectural implications considered in the following sections are:
•Physical address space behavior
•Caches and write buffers
•Translation buffers and virtual caches
•Data sharing
•Read/write ordering
•Arithmetic traps
To meet the requirements of the Alpha architecture, software and hardware implementors need to take these issues into consideration.
5.2 Physical Address Space Characteristics
Alpha physical address space is divided into four
5.2.1 Coherency of Memory Access
Alpha implementations must provide a coherent view of memory, in which each write by a processor or I/O device (hereafter, called "processor") becomes visible to all other processors. No distinction is made between coherency of "memory space" and "I/O space."
System Architecture and Programming Implications