Patents Assigned to Sun Microsystems
  • Patent number: 7487488
    Abstract: A mechanism is disclosed for assigning repeaters to signal paths in an integrated circuit design. The mechanism involves reserving, in a first metal layer of the integrated circuit design, metal tracks for routing signals. Access points to a plurality of repeaters are reserved in a second metal layer of the integrated circuit design. Each access point is associated with a particular repeater. The design may have other layers between the second metal layer and a region reserved for the repeaters. The number of repeaters may be based on the number of metal tracks that are available to route signals through the first region. Signal paths are assigned routes that comprise at least a portion of one or more of the metal tracks. A route from signal paths requiring a repeater to access points to a particular repeater is determined. Thus, the signal paths are assigned to a repeater.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Dajen Huang, Yi Wu, Arjun Dutt, Yu L. Zheng
  • Patent number: 7487327
    Abstract: A processor employing device-specific memory address translation. In one embodiment, a processor may include a device interface configured to receive a memory access request from an input/output (I/O) device, where the request specifies a virtual memory address and a first requestor identifier (ID) that identifies the I/O device. The processor may also include an I/O memory management unit coupled to the device interface and configured to determine whether a virtual-to-physical memory address translation corresponding to the virtual memory address is stored within an I/O memory translation buffer. The I/O memory management unit may be further configured to determine whether a second requestor ID stored within the I/O memory translation buffer and corresponding to the memory address translation matches the first requestor ID. If the first and second requestor IDs do not match, the I/O memory management unit may disallow the memory access request and to signal an error condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Bruce J. Chang, Ricky C. Hetherington, Brian J. McGee, David M. Kahn, Ashley N. Saulsbury
  • Patent number: 7487201
    Abstract: A method and system for managing events associated with either the client or the server using a controller framework includes initiating a request at a client. The request triggers an event that is processed using a client controller on the client. The client controller registers the event on the client, forwards the event to a server controller on a server, polls the server controller on the server periodically for information related to the event and retrieves notifications in response to the request or upon a poll. The client controller communicates with the server controller using asynchronous communication. The response retrieved by the client controller is loaded onto the browser of the client dynamically and rendered at the client as and when notifications are received from the server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory L Murray, Sean P Brydon, Inderjeet Singh
  • Patent number: 7487296
    Abstract: A multi-stride prefetcher includes a recurring prefetch table that in turn includes a stream table and an index table. The stream table includes a valid field and a tag field. The stream table also includes a thread number field to help support multi-threaded processor cores. The tag field stores a tag from an address associated with a cache miss. The index table includes fields for storing information characterizing a state machine. The fields include a learning bit. The multi-stride prefetcher prefetches data into a cache for a plurality of streams of cache misses, each stream having a plurality of strides.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 17, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Sorin Iacobovici, Sudarshan Kadambi, Yuan C. Chou
  • Patent number: 7487317
    Abstract: A chip multithreading processor schedules and assigns threads to its processing cores dependent on estimated miss rates in a shared cache memory of the threads. A cache miss rate of a thread is estimated by measuring cache miss rates of one or more groups of executing threads, where at least one of the groups includes the thread of interest. Using a determined estimated cache miss rate of the thread, the thread is scheduled with other threads to achieve a relatively low cache miss rate in the shared cache memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Alexandra Fedorova, Christopher A. Small
  • Patent number: 7487514
    Abstract: A method for obtaining a capability of a network interface card (NIC). The method includes sending a first data link provider interface (DLPI) request to the NIC and sending a DLPI acknowledgement to an operating system, where the DLPI acknowledgement includes the capability of the NIC. The method further includes enabling the capability on the operating system and establishing a direct communication channel between the NIC and the operating system using the capability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Yuzo Watanabe, Sunay Tripathi, Paul Durrant
  • Patent number: 7487510
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for dynamically and adaptively alternating encodings, protocols, and/or transports in remoting system clients. Embodiments may provide a mechanism or mechanisms to isolate encoding, protocol, and/or transport changes in remoting system clients. In a remoting system, a server may make its service(s) available via multiple encoding, protocol and transport (EPT) combinations. One embodiment may provide a mechanism that enables a remoting system client to select an EPT combination for sending messages to a server, to have that choice drive the creation of objects and/or interface instances on the remoting system client used in the message exchange, and to switch to a different EPT combination on the remoting system client if necessary or desired. Embodiments may be used in all types of remoting systems and/or in other computing environments including, but not limited to, peer-to-peer environments.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventor: Harold Carr
  • Patent number: 7486689
    Abstract: A system and method for mapping outbound communications (e.g., encapsulated Ethernet packets) from InfiniBand queue pairs (QP) and/or virtual lanes (VL) to ports through which they are to be transmitted to an external communication system. A memory is shared between the InfiniBand receive side and transmit side. A shared control structure facilitates management of a linked list for each queue pair. A linked list is composed of entries in the control structure; each entry stores a value identifying the next control entry in the list and a memory bucket associated with the entry. Each queue pair terminating has a head pointer identifying the first control entry and memory bucket, and a tail pointer identifying the last control entry and memory bucket of a linked list. When a communication is reassembled, pointers defining a sub-list comprising the communication are passed to a network transmit module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventor: James A. Mott
  • Patent number: 7487058
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that generates a synthetic workload to test power utilization in a computer system. During operation, the system monitors power utilization of a reference computer system while the reference computer system executes a workload-of interest, wherein the monitoring process produces a power profile. Next, the system determines characteristics of the workload-of-interest from the power profile. Finally, the system uses the determined characteristics to construct the synthetic workload, wherein the synthetic workload has similar power utilization to the workload-of-interest.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Kenny C. Gross, Ramakrishna C. Dhanekula, Kalyanaraman Vaidyanathan
  • Patent number: 7487467
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system and a method for presenting a set of icons in a display so that the icons can be selected by a user via a keypad. During operation, the display presents a set of icons to the user. The user can then select an icon from the set of icons by entering input into the keypad. The set of icons are presented in the display such that the spatial layout of the set of icons is substantially the same as the layout of the keypad, resulting in an intuitive interface that allows the user to select desired choices quickly and easily.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Hideya Kawahara, Yoojin Hong, Paul Byrne, Frank E. Ludolph, Curtis J. Sasaki, Eitaro Nishijima
  • Patent number: 7487509
    Abstract: System and method for providing multiple embodiments of abstract software modules in peer-to-peer network environments. A module class may have one or more module specifications. Each module specification may have one or more module implementations configured to execute within a particular execution environment. A unique module class identifier may be assigned to the module class. A role extension to the module class identifier may be generated for each instance of the module class that performs a different role in a context. A module specification advertisement may be generated for each module specification. A unique module specification identifier may be assigned to each module specification of the module class. A module implementation advertisement may be generated for each module implementation. In one embodiment, the module specification identifier of the corresponding module specification is included in each module implementation advertisement.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2003
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Jean-Christophe Hugly, Mohamed M. Abdelaziz, Eric Pouyoul, Bernard A. Traversat, Michael J. Duigou
  • Patent number: 7486695
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for multiplexed data communication tunneling channels. Embodiments of the tunneling mechanism may provide tunnel sockets between networking environments that allow a node in one networking environment to interconnect with network resources in other networking environments. A tunnel socket is a proxy or bridge across a peer-to-peer network between different networking environments. Using the tunneling mechanism, descriptions of network resources in one format may be translated to advertisements in a uniform description format, which may then be published on the network. The published advertisements may be discovered by entities in other networking environments and translated into formats of the other networking environments for access by the entities. To the entities, the resources appear to be in their local networking environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Mohamed M. AbdelAziz, Juan Carlos Soto
  • Patent number: 7486853
    Abstract: An assembly comprising first and second electronic devices and an optical resonator that optically couples an optical waveguide on the first electronic device to an optical waveguide on the second electronic device. In this way, optical proximity communication between the devices is possible. The electronic devices may be integrated circuit chips. A first portion of an optical resonator is disposed in a pit of the first device to optically couple the optical resonator to the first optical waveguide. A second portion of the optical resonator is disposed in a pit of the second device to optically couple the optical resonator to the second optical waveguide. Thus, the optical resonator optically couples the first optical waveguide to the second optical waveguide.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: John E. Cunningham, Ashok V. Krishnamoorthy
  • Patent number: 7487335
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates deferring execution of instructions with unresolved data dependencies as they are issued for execution in program order. During a normal-execution mode, the system issues instructions for execution in program order. Upon encountering an unresolved data dependency during execution of an instruction, the system generates a checkpoint, which includes a checkpointed version of the register file. Next, the system defers the instruction, which involves storing the instruction along with any resolved source operands for the instruction into a deferred buffer. The system then executes subsequent instructions in an execute-ahead mode which operates on a future version of the register file, wherein instructions that cannot be executed because of unresolved data dependencies are deferred, and wherein other non-deferred instructions are executed in program order.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Shailender Chaudhry, Syed I. Haq, Mohammed M. Rahman, Khanh Luu
  • Patent number: 7487479
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for enforcing design for manufacturability rules on a circuit layout is provided. A tool receives a first set of design rules, to be applied to the circuit layout, which must be followed. The tool also receives a second set of design rules, to be to the circuit layout, which may be followed. The first set of design rules may be supplied by an employer or followed by a design team, and the second set of design rules may correspond to a set of design for manufacturability (DFM) rules. The tool applies the first set of design rules and the second set of design rules to the circuit layout to generate a revised circuit layout. The revised circuit layout conforms to each of the first set of design rules, and conforms to as many design rules in the second set of design rules as possible.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Shobhit Malik, Hsiu-Nien Chen, Bob Yu, Wai Kit Leong
  • Patent number: 7487401
    Abstract: A system that detects the onset of hard disk drive failure. During operation, the system measures vibrations from the hard disk drive to produce one or more vibration signals. Next, the system generates a vibration signature for the hard disk drive from the measured vibration signals. The system then determines if the vibration signature indicates the onset of hard disk failure by comparing the vibration signature with a reference vibration signature for the hard disk drive. If so, the system generates a warning or takes a remedial action.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 16, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Aleksey M. Urmanov, Kenny C. Gross
  • Patent number: 7487463
    Abstract: A 3D window system allows the contents of conventional windows created by client applications to be painted onto the surfaces of 3D objects which are then displayed in a 3D environment. The 3D window system includes a window system server and a display server. The window system server and the display server access a shared visibility structure which contains information representative of a collection of 3D objects. The window system server determines which 3D object is selected by an input event, determines a window corresponding to the 3D object, and delivers event messages to client applications which have expressed an interest in receiving events relative to the window.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventor: Deron D. Johnson
  • Publication number: 20090026502
    Abstract: A filler cell for use in fabricating an integrated circuit. The filler cell couples a power supply rail of an adjacent logic cell to a power supply rail of another adjacent logic cell. The filler cell also has a diode to bleed charge accumulated on the power rails of the adjacent logic cells to the substrate. The diode is reverse biased during normal integrated circuit operation. A method for fabricating an integrated circuit with a power grid. At least one filler cell is placed on the integrated circuit to bleed away charge accumulated on the power grid during the fabrication of the integrated circuit. The filler cell is connected to a supply rail of an adjacent logic cell.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 26, 2007
    Publication date: January 29, 2009
    Applicant: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Yi Wu, Kenan Yu
  • Patent number: 7483870
    Abstract: Methods and systems for automatically updating data within a peer-to-peer enterprise information system. A change for a source data type is published over broadcast channel. The data change is received at a join engine peer and, in response to receiving the data change, the join engine peer consults a global attribute object model for identifying a dependent output entity (one that includes the same attribute as that of the data change) and for identifying additional attributes for forming a modified attribute set for the output entity. In response to discovering the output entity, a query is generated that is directed to a source system that includes the additional attributes for forming the modified attribute set. Upon receiving a response from the source system, the join engine peer automatically forms the modified attribute set and publishes it to an output source system associated with the output entity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Ashwin J. Mathew, Subhashini Subramaniam
  • Patent number: 7484225
    Abstract: System and method for describing and identifying abstract software modules in peer-to-peer networking environments. A module class may have one or more module specifications. Each module specification may have one or more module implementations. A module class advertisement may be generated for the module class. A unique module class identifier may be assigned to the module class. A role extension to the module class identifier may be generated for each instance of the module class that performs a different role in a context. A unique module specification identifier may be assigned to each module specification of the module class. In one embodiment, a module specification advertisement may be generated for each module specification. In one embodiment, there may be one or more module implementations for each module specification. In one embodiment, a module implementation advertisement may be generated for each module implementation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2003
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2009
    Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    Inventors: Jean-Christophe Hugly, Mohamed M. Abdelaziz, Eric Pouyoul, Bernard A. Traversat, Michael J. Duigou