diff --git a/arch/arc/mm/dma.c b/arch/arc/mm/dma.c
index 8c1071840979..ec47e6079f5d 100644
--- a/arch/arc/mm/dma.c
+++ b/arch/arc/mm/dma.c
@@ -129,14 +129,59 @@ int arch_dma_mmap(struct device *dev, struct vm_area_struct *vma,
 	return ret;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Cache operations depending on function and direction argument, inspired by
+ * https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/5/18/979
+ * "dma_sync_*_for_cpu and direction=TO_DEVICE (was Re: [PATCH 02/20]
+ * dma-mapping: provide a generic dma-noncoherent implementation)"
+ *
+ *          |   map          ==  for_device     |   unmap     ==  for_cpu
+ *          |----------------------------------------------------------------
+ * TO_DEV   |   writeback        writeback      |   none          none
+ * FROM_DEV |   invalidate       invalidate     |   invalidate*   invalidate*
+ * BIDIR    |   writeback+inv    writeback+inv  |   invalidate    invalidate
+ *
+ *     [*] needed for CPU speculative prefetches
+ *
+ * NOTE: we don't check the validity of direction argument as it is done in
+ * upper layer functions (in include/linux/dma-mapping.h)
+ */
+
 void arch_sync_dma_for_device(struct device *dev, phys_addr_t paddr,
 		size_t size, enum dma_data_direction dir)
 {
-	dma_cache_wback(paddr, size);
+	switch (dir) {
+	case DMA_TO_DEVICE:
+		dma_cache_wback(paddr, size);
+		break;
+
+	case DMA_FROM_DEVICE:
+		dma_cache_inv(paddr, size);
+		break;
+
+	case DMA_BIDIRECTIONAL:
+		dma_cache_wback_inv(paddr, size);
+		break;
+
+	default:
+		break;
+	}
 }
 
 void arch_sync_dma_for_cpu(struct device *dev, phys_addr_t paddr,
 		size_t size, enum dma_data_direction dir)
 {
-	dma_cache_inv(paddr, size);
+	switch (dir) {
+	case DMA_TO_DEVICE:
+		break;
+
+	/* FROM_DEVICE invalidate needed if speculative CPU prefetch only */
+	case DMA_FROM_DEVICE:
+	case DMA_BIDIRECTIONAL:
+		dma_cache_inv(paddr, size);
+		break;
+
+	default:
+		break;
+	}
 }