A system for prefetching information from a computer storage includes a central
processing unit operable to transmit to a transfer bus a memory transfer request
containing a desired memory address. The system also includes a system controller
operable to receive the memory transfer request from the transfer bus and to retrieve
a prefetch block of data from the computer storage in response to determining that
a stream buffer local to the system controller does not contain a copy of data
stored at the desired memory address. The system controller is further operable
to retrieve the data from the stream buffer and communicate the data to the central
processing unit in response to determining that the stream buffer contains a copy
of the data stored at the desired memory address.
