Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
ZERO VALUE MEMORY COMPRESSION

Abstract:

A coherency management device receives requests to read data from or write data to an address in a main memory. On a write, if the data includes zero data, an entry corresponding to the memory address is created in a cache directory if it does not already exist, is set to an invalid state, and indicates that the data includes zero data. The zero data is not written to main memory or a cache. On a read, the cache directory is checked for an entry corresponding to the memory address. If the entry exists in the cache directory, is invalid, and includes an indication that data corresponding to the memory address includes zero data, the coherency management device returns zero data in response to the request without fetching the data from main memory or a cache.