The present invention relates to the management of caches in a data processing
apparatus, and in particular to the management of caches of the type where data
in the cache may be designated as locked to prevent that data from being overwritten.
The data processing apparatus comprises a processor, an n-way set associative cache
having a plurality of entries, each entry being arranged to store one or more data
values and a corresponding address identifier, the processor being operable to
select one or more of the n-ways to operate in a lockdown mode, the lockdown mode
being used to lock data values into the corresponding way, and a plurality of lockdown
controllers. Each lockdown controller is associated with a corresponding way and
comprises an address register arranged to store an address range specified by the
processor such that, when the corresponding way is in the lockdown mode, only data
values whose address identifiers are within the address range are locked into the
corresponding way. This technique provides for reduced complexity during lockdown
because in preferred embodiments a dedicated lockdown program is not required to
carefully manage the storage of data values in the lockdown, the lockdown occurs automatically.