PRE-FETCHING OF DATA PACKETS

• US 20110219195A1
• Filed: 03/01/2011
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Israel Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Marvell Israel Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Habusha, Adi, Khoury, Rabeeh, Pais, Alon
• Granted Patent: US 9,037,810 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/137
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/08 in hierarchically structured memory systems, e.g. virtual memory systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0859 with reload from main memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0862 with prefetch
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/12 Replacement control
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/121 using replacement algorithms

Abstract

Some of the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method comprising receiving a data packet, and storing the received data packet in a memory; generating a descriptor for the data packet, the descriptor including information for fetching at least a portion of the data packet from the memory; and in advance of a processing core requesting the at least a portion of the data packet to execute a processing operation on the at least a portion of the data packet, fetching the at least a portion of the data packet to a cache based at least in part on information in the descriptor. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a data packet, and storing the received data packet in a memory;

generating a descriptor for the data packet, the descriptor including information for fetching at least a portion of the data packet from the memory; and

in advance of a processing core requesting the at least a portion of the data packet to execute a processing operation on the at least a portion of the data packet, fetching the at least a portion of the data packet to a cache based at least in part on information in the descriptor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the descriptor is performed in a packet processing module that is separate from the processing core.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

processing the descriptor of the data packet to determine the at least a portion of the data packet that is to be fetched.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising

processing the descriptor of the data packet to determine a memory location from which the at least a portion of the data packet is to be fetched.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the data packet is a first data packet, wherein the first data packet is associated with a first traffic flow, and wherein said fetching the section of the first data packet further comprises:

pre-fetching, while processing a second data packet associated with the first traffic flow, the at least a portion of the first data packet from the memory to the cache based at least in part on the first data packet and the second data packet being associated with the same traffic flow.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the data packet comprises a first section of the data packet, wherein the data packet comprises the first section and a second section, and wherein the method further comprises:

refraining from fetching the second section of the data packet to the cache while fetching the first section of the data packet, based at least in part on information in the descriptor.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the descriptor further comprises:

determining that the data packet is associated with a routing application; and

generating the descriptor such that the descriptor includes information for fetching a header section of the data packet, based on determining that the data packet is associated with the routing application;

wherein said fetching the at least a portion of the data packet further comprises fetching the header section of the data packet, based on the descriptor.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the descriptor further comprises:

determining that the data packet is associated with a security application; and

generating the descriptor such that the descriptor includes information for fetching a header section and a payload section of the data packet, based on determining that the data packet is associated with the security application;

wherein said fetching the at least a portion of the data packet further comprises fetching the header section and the payload section of the data packet, based on the descriptor.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the descriptor is a first descriptor, the data packet is a first data packet, and wherein said fetching the at least a portion of the first data packet further comprises:

generating a second descriptor for a second data packet that is received and stored in the memory; and

fetching the at least a portion of the first data packet subsequent to fetching at least a portion of the second data packet, based at least in part on the second descriptor and the first descriptor being two consecutive descriptors in a descriptor queue.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing, by the processing core, the at least a portion of the data packet from the cache; and

processing, by the processing core, the accessed at least a portion of the data packet.

11. A system-on-chip (SOC) comprising:

a processing core;

a cache;

a packet processing module configured to generate a descriptor for a data packet, the descriptor including information for fetching a section of the data packet from a memory; and

a packet descriptor based pre-fetch module configured to;

fetch and process the descriptor of the data packet, and

fetch the section of the data packet to the cache based at least in part on processing the descriptor of the data packet.

12. The SOC of claim 11, wherein the processing core is configured to:

access the fetched section of the data packet from the cache, and

process the accessed section of the data packet.

13. The SOC of claim 11, wherein the packet descriptor based pre-fetch module is further configured to fetch the section of the data packet from a memory that is external to the SOC.

14. The SOC of claim 11, wherein the descriptor includes an indication of a memory location from where the data packet is to be fetched, and also includes an indication of the section of the data packet that is to be fetched.

15. The SOC of claim 11, wherein:

the data packet is a first data packet;

the first data packet is associated with a first traffic flow; and

the packet descriptor based pre-fetch module is further configured to pre-fetch, while processing a second data packet associated with the first traffic flow, the section of the first data packet from a memory to the cache based at least in part on the first data packet and the second data packet being associated with the same traffic flow.

16. The SOC of claim 11, wherein the packet processing module further comprises:

a parsing and classification engine to receive the data packet and generate classification information of the data packet; and

a descriptor generator module configured to generate the descriptor based at least in part on the classification information.

17. The SOC of claim 11, wherein the packet processing module is configured to generate the descriptor based at least in part on a type of application or a priority level associated with the data packet.

18. A method comprising:

receiving a data packet;

parsing and classifying the data packet to generate classification information of the data packet;

generating a descriptor of the data packet based at least in part on the classification information, the descriptor including an indication of a section of the data packet that is to be pre-fetched; and

queuing the descriptor in a descriptor queue.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

pre-fetching and processing the descriptor; and

pre-fetching the section of the data packet, based at least in part on said processing the descriptor.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein said generating the descriptor further comprises:

generating the descriptor such that the descriptor includes an address of a memory location in which the data packet is stored.