Hello,
I'm working with i.MX8DX (Dual Core CortexA35 + CortexM4) with the following simplified caching system:
My need is to flush a cached memory area to RAM in order to be viewed by the M4 core, unfortunately this area maybe cached by Core 0 and Core 1, something like this:
If Core 0 "only" did execute the assembly instruction (DC CIVAC) on address X for lines equal to size Y, on both L1 and L2, will the data cached by Core 1 also be cleaned and invalidated to RAM?
If not, do I need to execute (DC CIVAC) on both Core0 and Core1? Or there is another system-wide call that can be executed on Core 0 only to do the job?
Also, how can I test a behavior like this? Any advice?
Thanks in Advance.
There is only cache coherence between the CA cores. Means Core1 cache gets updated when core 0 writes back. As for the CM4 you should consider it as any other slave and memory it reads should be flushed whenever written.
Thank you for the reply.
I'll re-formalize my question.
Is there a possible way to flush the caches of Core 0 and Core 1 for a certain address range from Core 0 only? And is there a way to test this?
Thanks in advance.
I think you need broadcast Cache Maintenance OperationsSee as example
http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.ddi0246f/Beicdhde.html
Thank you for your reply, the link is for ARMv7, but it really helped.
I did find the following link:developer.arm.com/.../cache-coherency
It states the following:
"... This means that software on one core can issue a cache clean or invalidate operation to an address that might currently be stored in the data cache of a different core that holds the address.... "
It states also that the instruction "DC CIVAC" is broadcasted.
The question is now, do I need to clean and invalidate L1 and L2 for the address range? Or cleaning and invalidating L2 only will do the job?
I'm not using this, so I don't know the details.This behavior/procedure must be defined in the documentation of your device.If broadcast Cache Maintenance Operations supported for L1+L2 caches, then you need only use these operations.If broadcast Cache Maintenance Operations supported only for L1 caches (I think this is what is supported), then you should use a similar procedure as described at ARMv7 (see attached image - Clean Operation flow, check if you have this procedure in your Device documentation).