Compaq EV67, 21264 specifications Data Transfer Commands Two Cycles, Data Transfer Command Format

System Port

Table 4–22 Next Cache Block State Selection by Probe[2:0] (Continued)

Probe[2:0]	Next Tag State
101	Invalid
110	Transition12: Clean ⇒ Clean/Shared
	Dirty ⇒ Dirty/Shared
111	Reserved

1Transition3 is useful in nonduplicate tag systems that want to give writable status to the reader and do not know if the block is clean or dirty.

2Transition1 is useful in nonduplicate tag systems that do not update memory on ReadBlk hits to a dirty block in another processor.

The 21264/EV67 holds pending probe commands in a 8-entry deep probe queue. The system must count the number of probes that have been sent and ensure that the probes do not overrun the 21264/EV67 queue. The 21264/EV67 removes probes from the internal probe queue when the probe response is sent.

The 21264/EV67 expects to hit in cache on a probe response, so it always fetches a cache block from the Bcache on system probes. This can become a performance prob- lem for systems that do not monitor the Bcache tags, so the 21264/EV67 provides Cbox CSR PRB_TAG_ONLY[0], which only accesses Bcache tags for system probes. For a Bcache hit, the 21264/EV67 retries the probe reference to get the associated data. In this mode, the 21264/EV67 has a cache-hit counter that maintains some history of past cache hits in order to fetch the data with the tag in the cases where streamed transac- tions are being performed to the host processor.

4.7.7.2 Data Transfer Commands (Two Cycles)

Data transfer commands use a 2-cycle format on SysAddIn_L[14:0]. The SysDc[4:0] field indicates success or failure for ChangeToDirty and MB commands, and error con- ditions as shown in Table 4–24.

The pattern of data is controlled by the SysDataInValid_L and SysDataOutValid_L signals. These signals are valid each cycle of data transfer, indicating any gaps in the data cycle pattern. The SysDataInValid_L and SysDataOutValid_L signals are described in Section 4.7.8.4. Table 4–23shows the format of the data transfer com- mand.

Table 4–23 Data Transfer Command Format

			SysAddIn_L[14:2]				SysAddIn_L[1]	SysAddIn_L[0]
Cycle 1	0	SysDc[4:0]	RVB	RPB	A	ID[3:0]	X	X
Cycle 2	C			X			X	X

4–28Cache and External Interfaces Alpha 21264/EV67 Hardware Reference Manual