One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that enforces memory-reference ordering requirements at an L2 cache. During operation, the system receives a load at the L2 cache, wherein the load previously caused a miss at an L1cache. Upon receiving the load, the system performs a lookup for the load in reflections of store buffers associated with other L1 caches. These reflections are located at the L2 cache, and each reflection contains addresses for stores in a corresponding store buffer associated with an L1 cache, and possibly contains data that was overwritten by the stores. If the lookup generates a hit, which indicates that the load may potentially interfere with a store, the system causes the load to wait to execute until the store commits.
RELATED APPLICATION
This application hereby claims priority under 35 U.S.C..sctn.119 to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/776,477, filed on 23 Feb. 2006, entitled "Enforcing Memory-Reference Ordering Requirements at the L2 Cache Level," by inventors Shailender Chaudhry and Marc Tremblay.
