Cache coherence

In computer architecture, cache coherence is the uniformity of shared resource data that ends up stored in multiple local caches. When clients in a system maintain caches of a common memory resource, problems may arise with incoherent data, which is particularly the case with CPUs in a multiprocessing system.

In the illustration on the right, consider both the clients have a cached copy of a particular memory block from a previous read. Suppose the client on the bottom updates/changes that memory block, the client on the top could be left with an invalid cache of memory without any notification of the change. Cache coherence is intended to manage such conflicts by maintaining a coherent view of the data values in multiple caches.