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Modeling and Verification
of
Cache Coherence Protocols

Lubomir Ivanov
Department of Computer Science
Iona College
715 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801
livanov@iona.edu

 
Ramakrishna Nunna
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
California State University Fresno, MS 94
Fresno, CA 93740
rnunna@csufresno.edu
Abstract
A cache coherence protocol is a set of rules, which cache controllers in a system with multiple cache memories must follow to maintain the consistency of data stored in the local cache memories as well as in main memory. MESI is a popular cache coherence protocol used to synchronize the operation of cache controllers in many Shared Memory MIMD systems. MESI is also used to maintain the consistency between the level-1 and level-2 caches of the Intel PentiumŪ microprocessor. In this paper we present a model of the MESI protocol based on the recently introduced series-parallel poset modeling and verification methodology. We illustrate the use of the new methodology by verifying a few properties of the MESI protocol.