Level One Memory System
ARM DDI 0363E
Copyright © 2009 ARM Limited. All rights reserved.
8-35
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8.7
Memory types and L1 memory system behavior
The behavior of the L1 memory system depends on the type attribute of the memory that is being
accessed:
•
Only Normal, Non-shared memory can be cached in the RAMs.
•
The store buffer can merge any stores to Normal memory. See
Store buffer
on page 8-18
for more information.
•
Only Normal memory is considered restartable, that is, a multi-word transfer can be
abandoned part way through because of an interrupt, to be restarted after the interrupt has
been handled. See
Interrupts
on page 2-18 for more information about interrupt behavior.
•
Only the internal exclusive monitor is used for exclusive accesses to Non-shared memory.
Exclusive accesses to shared memory are checked using the internal monitor and also, if
necessary, any external monitor, using the L2 memory interface.
•
Accesses resulting from
SWP
and
SWPB
instructions to Cacheable memory are not marked
as locked when performed using the L2 memory interface.
Table 8-17 summarizes the processor memory types and associated behavior.
Table 8-17 Memory types and associated behavior
Memory type
Cacheable
Merging
Restartable
Internal
exclusives
Locked
swaps
Normal
Shared
No
Yes
Yes
Partially
Yes
Non-shared
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Device
Shared
No
No
No
Partially
Yes
Non-shared
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Strongly Ordered
Shared
No
No
No
Partially
Yes