Cache Line Flush

Write back and/or invalidate a cache line by address.

Memory System

Semantics

Forces a cache line to memory, invalidates it, or both. Central to persistent-memory programming and to several cache-timing side-channel mitigations.

Architecture Instructions Expressed as How this architecture does it
x86 one instruction CLFLUSH invalidates and writes back a line; CLFLUSHOPT is the weakly ordered version, and CLWB writes back while keeping the line cached.
ARM one instruction A single DC instruction whose operand names the operation, such as DC CVAC (clean by virtual address to point of coherency) or DC CIVAC (clean and invalidate).
RISC-V one instruction Zicbom cache-block management: separate CBO.CLEAN, CBO.FLUSH, and CBO.INVAL instructions.
PowerISA one instruction dcbf flushes a data cache block; dcbst stores without invalidating, and icbi handles the instruction cache.