Write buffer

A write buffer is a type of data buffer that can be used to hold data being written from the cache to main memory or to the next cache in the memory hierarchy to improve performance and reduce latency.

Some software disciplines, like C11's data-race-freedom,[2] are sufficient to regain a sequentially consistent view of memory.

To further mitigate this stall, one optimization called write buffer merge may be implemented.

Besides reducing pipeline stall by not waiting for dirty lines to write back as a simple write buffer does, a victim buffer may also serve as a temporary backup storage when subsequent cache accesses exhibit locality, requesting those recently evicted lines, which are still in the victim buffer.

The store buffer was invented by IBM during Project ACS between 1964 and 1968,[3] but it was first implemented in commercial products in the 1990s.