Patents Represented by Attorney Matthew C. Zehrer
  • Patent number: 8342691
    Abstract: An information technology system includes a micro projector display for displaying status, operating, troubleshooting, and location information. An image output from the micro projector display is viewable from outside the enclosure, for example on a cabinet door, an optional retractable projection screen included with the enclosure, or a floor, wall, or ceiling of a room, or other external surface. In some embodiments of the invention, a micro display projector is adapted for removable electrical and mechanical connection to one or more docking ports on the information technology system. In some embodiments of the invention, a projection direction for the micro projector display is selectable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Aaron R. Cox, Michael A. Curnalia, Christina M. Kokini, Leslie A. Velasco
  • Patent number: 8312069
    Abstract: A permute unit includes permute logic and a crossbar working in cycles defined by clocking signals and generates one valid output vector per cycle by treating two parallel input vectors per cycle. The permute unit is double pumped by performing two inner cycles per outer cycle defined by the clocking signals. In the first inner cycle, first halves of both input vectors are treated. In the second inner cycle, second halves of both input vectors are treated and a valid output vector is generated from the results of the treatments within the first and the second inner cycles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2007
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Tobias Gemmeke, Jens Leenstra, Dieter Wendel
  • Patent number: 8301942
    Abstract: Methods and a computer program product related to the management of possibly logically bad blocks in storage devices are disclosed. A logically bad pattern is placed in a standard size data block if data associated with the data block has previously been stored or is waiting to be stored, but has subsequently become lost. The logical block address associated with the data block is stored in a bad block table. The possibly logically bad pattern is able to be detected, and the bad block table is checked to determine if the data block to be read is in fact Logically Bad. A data check response may be given if the logical block address is present in a Bad Block Table. The possibly logically bad pattern may have a first predefined data portion and a second predefined data portion and may be repeated to fill the standard size data block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Robert E. Galbraith, Adrian C. Gerhard, Daniel F. Moertl
  • Patent number: 8278888
    Abstract: A power regulation scheme includes a first voltage regulation portion connected in parallel with a second voltage regulation portion that regulates a voltage if an open condition occurs within the first voltage regulation portion. Each voltage regulation portion may include a first voltage regulator connected in series with a second voltage regulator that regulates the voltage if a short condition occurs within the first voltage regulator. Each voltage regulation portion may utilize a switching element to route an output voltage of the first voltage regulator past the second voltage regulator if the output voltage has been regulated and/or to force the output voltage to be regulated by the second voltage regulator if the output voltage has not been regulated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 2, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Patrick K. Egan, Jordan R. Keuseman, Michael L. Miller
  • Patent number: 8275575
    Abstract: A method of statistical analysis is based on an accelerated degradation model for estimating the failure rate from a set of accelerated life data (e.g. stress, humidity, temperature, voltage, resistance, vibration, etc.). The method re-samples randomly distributed data and organizes it into subsets that may be ordered. The maximum is found for each subset. From the maximums a parametric LEV distribution is determined. Maximum Likelihood Estimation methods may be used to find the parameters employed in the determined LEV distribution. The failure rate is calculated using the determined LEV distribution of the sample maximums.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 20, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Amanda E. Mikhail, Mark D. Plucinski
  • Patent number: 8250345
    Abstract: A design structure embodied in a machine readable storage medium designing, manufacturing, and/or testing a design that includes a multi-threaded processor that executes an instruction of a process of an executing program is provided. The multi-threaded processor includes at least a first and a second thread. First and second sets of source registers are respectively allocated to the first and second threads, and first and second sets of destination registers are respectively allocated to the first and second threads. A resource prefix configuration register includes mappings between each of the source and destination registers and the threads. The multi-threaded processor, during execution of the instruction by one of the first or the second threads of execution, accesses the source and destination registers based on the mapping, wherein at least one of the accessed registers is allocated to the other of the first or the second thread of execution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Anthony J. Bybell
  • Patent number: 8249177
    Abstract: For example, a method of detecting frame marker quality includes: detecting, in a bit-stream sent from a first component to a second component of a common hardware unit, a frame marker having a bit pattern different from an uncorrupted frame marker specified by a communication protocol; and assigning a quality level indicator to the frame marker based on a difference between said bit pattern and a bit pattern of said uncorrupted frame marker.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 4, 2009
    Date of Patent: August 21, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Etai Adar, Michael Bar-Joshua, David Stauffer
  • Patent number: 8245009
    Abstract: Memory is logically partitioned into two regions. A first region may be a similar size relative to the second region or the first region may be a small subset of the memory. The first region of memory is initialized and an operating system utilizes the first region. A system handler simulates a physical hot add of the second region. After the simulated physical hot add, the operating system may utilize the second region as if it were newly added physical memory and/or may utilize both the first region and second region.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2011
    Date of Patent: August 14, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Joseph Allen Kirscht, Sumeet Kochar, Barry Alan Kritt, William Bradley Schwartz
  • Patent number: 8218642
    Abstract: A video stream encoding apparatus and method therefore is herein described. The video stream encoding apparatus includes a divider for dividing a frame in a video stream into a plurality of processing units, each processing unit including a plurality of macro-blocks; and an encoder for encoding the plurality of macro-blocks in each processing unit in parallel. The same quantization parameters are used for respective macro-blocks in the same processing unit in the quantization of the encoder. By the apparatus and the method of the invention, dependencies between macro-blocks are broken, and the precision of high rate controlling is kept while encoding the respective macro-blocks in parallel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Yi Zhi Gao, Jia Jun Liu, Xing Liu, Bao Sheng Lu, Jia Wang
  • Patent number: 8219746
    Abstract: A memory system and methods for memory manage are presented. The memory system includes a volatile memory electrically connected to a high-density memory; a memory controller that expects data to be written or read to or from the memory system at a bandwidth and a latency associated with the volatile memory; a directory within the volatile memory that associates a volatile memory address with data stored in the high-density memory; and redundant storage in the high-density memory that stores a copy of the association between the volatile memory address and the data stored in the high-density memory. The methods for memory management allow writing to and reading from the memory system using a first memory read/write interface (e.g. DRAM interface, etc.), though data is stored in a device of a different memory type (e.g. FLASH, etc.).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Robert B. Tremaine
  • Patent number: 8208396
    Abstract: In various embodiments a traffic class manager is a resource within a virtualized computer systems trusted entity (i.e. a hypervisor, trusted partition, etc.) which maps requirements from a platform management and associated network capabilities onto an SR-IOV adapter in order to appropriately allocate SR-IOV adapter and network resources to the virtualized computer partitions. In various embodiments the traffic class manager defines network traffic classes that meet the objectives of a platform administrator based on the capabilities of the SR-IOV adapter and the network attached to the adapter ports. Once the traffic classes are defined, in various embodiments, the traffic class manager enforces the assignment of a traffic class to a virtual interface queue pair within a partition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Daniel G. Eisenhauer, Charles S. Graham, Carol T. Machuca, Jeffrey W. Palm, Renato J. Recio
  • Patent number: 8164576
    Abstract: Detect four sets of first touch coordinates (A, B, C, D) on a touch panel. Divide an area delimited by the detected four sets into two areas of triangles (ABD, BCD). For each area of triangle, obtain a first correction factor. Detect a set of second touch coordinates (P, Q) selected within a respective one of the areas of triangles. Convert the detected set of second touch coordinates into a set of first corrected coordinates. Detect a difference between the set of first corrected coordinates and a set of true display coordinates. Where the detected difference is greater than a predetermined threshold value, further divide the area of triangle (BCD) into three areas of triangles (QBD, QBC, QCD). Obtain a second correction factor using the set of second touch coordinates and the sets of first touch coordinates corresponding to the vertices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 12, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Tomomi Inoue, Yoshifumi Sakamoto, Koki Shimohashi, Manabu Toyota
  • Patent number: 8127271
    Abstract: The present invention relates to method and system for accessing a resource implemented in a computer network, wherein a plurality of different runtime environments exist used by either one of the resources or by a systems management application accessing one of the resources, wherein the different runtime environments require the usage of a web service resource framework comprising a plurality of respective different, runtime-specific web service standards.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael M Behrendt, Martin Henke, Dietmar Kuebler, Georg Ochs
  • Patent number: 8127087
    Abstract: Read commands on a mirrored memory computer system are scheduled by utilizing information about pending memory access requests. A conflict queue is configured to track a read/write queue associated with each of a plurality of memory ports on the mirrored memory system. The conflict queue determines a predicted latency on each memory port based on the contents of each of the read/write queues. A compare logic unit is coupled to the conflict queue, wherein the compare logic unit compares a predicted latency of a primary memory and a mirrored memory and schedules read commands to the memory port with the lowest predicted latency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Herman L. Blackmon, Joseph A. Kirscht, Elizabeth A. McGlone, Jeb A. Shookman
  • Patent number: 8105940
    Abstract: A first through via is electrically insulated from surrounding wafer substrate material. A second through via is not electrically insulated from the surrounding wafer substrate material. This configuration is advantageous when the non-insulated via serves as the path for either Vdd or GND. By not insulating the through via, a first supply voltage (Vdd or GND) is allowed to flow through the surrounding wafer substrate material thereby decreasing the resistance of the first supply voltage path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Todd Alan Christensen, John Edward Sheets, II
  • Patent number: 8104018
    Abstract: A method of configuring a software product comprises accessing a user model, the user model defining one or more user roles and one or more tasks, each task linked to a role, accessing a task to software function map, the map defining one or more software functions of the software product and one or more tasks, each software function linked to a task, and configuring the software product so that access to the software product according to a specific user role is via a user interface supporting the software functions linked to the specific role via the tasks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2012
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Amanda Elizabeth Chessell, John William Sweitzer, Kamorudeen Larry Yusuf
  • Patent number: 8046641
    Abstract: In response to a hypervisor page fault for memory that is not resident in a shared memory pool, an I/O paging request is sent to an external storage paging space. In response to a paging service partition encountering an I/O paging error, a paging failure indication is sent to the hypervisor. A simulated machine check interrupt instruction is sent from the hypervisor to the shared memory partition and a machine check handler obtains control. The machine check handler performs data analysis utilizing an error log in an attempt to isolate the I/O paging error to a process or a set of processes in the shared memory partition. The process or set of processes associated with the I/O paging error, or the shared memory partition itself, may be terminated. Finally, the shared memory partition may clear or initialize the page associated with the I/O paging error.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 25, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Carol B. Hernandez, David A. Larson, Naresh Nayar, John T. O'Quin, II, Gary R. Ricard, Kenneth C. Vossen
  • Patent number: 8040115
    Abstract: A power regulation circuit includes at least a first regulator connected to a second regulator in series forming a first regulator pair and a third regulator connected to a fourth regulator in series forming a second regulator pair. The first regulator pair is connected in parallel with the second regulator pair. Each individual regulator is configured to separately regulate an input voltage to a predetermined regulated output voltage. The second regulator pair regulates the input voltage if a short condition occurs within the first regulator pair and the second and fourth regulators each regulate the input voltage if an open condition occurs within the first or third regulator respectively.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 4, 2009
    Date of Patent: October 18, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Patrick K Egan, Jordan R Keuseman, Michael L Miller
  • Patent number: 7987336
    Abstract: This invention generally provides a method for speeding up system boot time, by initializing a subset of memory during the system firmware test/initialization, and allowing the system to boot an operating system with this subset of installed memory. While the system is completing the operating system boot with the subset of installed memory, a remainder of the installed system memory is being initialized/tested. When the initialization the remainder of system memory is completed (and after the OS has booted), the SMI handler is invoked. The SMI handler then simulates a physical memory “Hot Add” event, and reports the event to the OS. This allows much of the memory initialization/test activity to occur in parallel with the firmware initialization/test and operating system startup processes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 26, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Joseph Allen Kirscht, Sumeet Kochar, Barry Alan Kritt, William Bradley Schwartz
  • Patent number: 7957144
    Abstract: A heat exchange system for blade server systems is disclosed, wherein said blade server system contains a plurality of server blades arranged in a blade center, wherein the heat exchange system comprises first heat sink associated to each of said plurality of server blades, and whereby the first heat sink are adapted to collect heat emitted from heat emitting devices on said associated server blade; means for transferring heat from the heat emitting devices to the first heat sink; and a liquid cooled second heat sink associated to said blade center, whereby said first heat sink are connected to said second heat sink by thermal coupling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 7, 2011
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Carsten Goettert, Harald Huels, Hans-Guenter Kraemer, Manfred Ries, Rolf Schaefer