Patents Examined by Nicholas Simonetti
  • Patent number: 9128853
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with a lookup structure for a large block cache are described. According to one embodiment, at least two blocks of data are stored in a cache. A lookup entry is constructed that describes the at least two blocks of data. The lookup entry includes block specific information that describes individual blocks of the at least two blocks of data. The lookup entry is stored in the lookup structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: September 8, 2015
    Assignee: Toshiba Corporation
    Inventors: Arvind Pruthi, Sandeep Karmarkar, Kanishk Rastogi
  • Patent number: 9104605
    Abstract: A system and method is provided wherein, in one aspect, a currently-requested item of information is stored in a cache based on whether it has been previously requested and, if so, the time of the previous request. If the item has not been previously requested, it may not be stored in the cache. If the subject item has been previously requested, it may or may not be cached based on a comparison of durations, namely (1) the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the subject item and (2) for each other item in the cache, the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the other item. If the duration associated with the subject item is less than the duration of another item in the cache, the subject item may be stored in the cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Timo Burkard, David Presotto
  • Patent number: 9104618
    Abstract: Enhanced configuration of security and access control for data in a storage device is disclosed. A request is received to access an addressable memory location in a storage media within the storage device. A set of addressable memory locations with contiguous addresses identified by an address range is associated with first and second characteristics. The first characteristic is applied if the addressable memory location is within the set of addressable memory locations, and an entity is currently authenticated to and authorized to access the set of addressable memory locations. The second characteristic is applied if the addressable memory location is within the set of addressable memory locations, and no entity is currently authenticated to and authorized to access the set of addressable memory locations. The set of addressable memory locations can also be a logical partition, where the first and second characteristics are stored in a logical partition table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: SanDisk Technologies Inc.
    Inventors: Rotem Sela, Michael Holtzman, Ron Barzilai, Donald Ray Bryant-Rich
  • Patent number: 9081687
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for monitor and mwait in a distributed cache architecture is disclosed. One embodiment includes an execution thread sending a MONITOR request for an address to a portion of a distributed cache that stores the data corresponding to that address. At the distributed cache portion the MONITOR request and an associated speculative state is recorded locally for the execution thread. The execution thread then issues an MWAIT instruction for the address. At the distributed cache portion the MWAIT and an associated wait-to-trigger state are recorded for the execution thread. When a write request matching the address is received at the distributed cache portion, a monitor-wake event is then sent to the execution thread and the associated monitor state at the distributed cache portion for that execution thread can be reset to idle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Zeev Offen, Alon Naveh, Iris Sorani
  • Patent number: 9081688
    Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for providing a cache block in an exclusive state to a first cache and providing the same cache block in the exclusive state to a second cache when cores accessing the two caches are executing redundant threads. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Glenn J. Hinton, Steven E. Raasch, Sebastien Hily, John G. Holm, Ronak Singhal, Avinash Sodani, Deborah T. Marr, Shubhendu S. Mukherjee, Arijit Biswas, Adrian C. Moga
  • Patent number: 9081691
    Abstract: Described are techniques for performing recovery processing in a data storage system. A providing a flash-based memory is provided with includes cached write data that has not been destaged to a data storage device. It is determined whether said flash-based memory has a threshold amount of storage available thereon. If the flash-based memory does not have the threshold amount of storage available thereon, portions of the cache write data are destaged until said flash-based memory has a threshold amount of storage available thereon. Received data requests are processed in accordance with a first policy different from a second policy used in connection with processing received data requests if said flash-based memory has a threshold amount of storage available thereon.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Assignee: EMC Corporation
    Inventors: Uday K. Gupta, Charles H. Hopkins, Michael B. Evans
  • Patent number: 9075729
    Abstract: An embodiment of the present invention is a storage system including a plurality of non-volatile storage devices for storing user data, and a controller for controlling data transfer between the plurality of non-volatile storage devices and a host. The controller includes a processor core circuit, a processor cache, and a primary storage device including a cache area for temporarily storing user data. The processor core circuit ascertains contents of a command received from the host. The processor core circuit ascertains a retention storage device of data to be transferred in the storage system in operations responsive to the command. The processor core circuit determines whether to transfer the data via the processor cache in the storage system, based on a type of the command and the ascertained retention storage device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 7, 2015
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Naoya Okada, Masanori Takada, Hiroshi Hirayama
  • Patent number: 9063181
    Abstract: A device and method are provided for managing flash memory of an intelligent electronic device (IED) to maximize the IED life. The IED includes at least one sensor for sensing at least one electrical parameter distributed to a load. At least one analog-to-digital converter is coupled to the at least one sensor for converting an analog signal output from the at least one sensor to digital data. A processing unit is coupled to the at least one analog-to-digital converter to receive the digital data and store the digital data in a memory. The memory includes sectors configured to store the digital data. The processing unit stores the digital data in each of the sectors and equalizes usage of each sector over time by equalizing a number of erases for each of the sectors over time.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 23, 2015
    Assignee: Electro Industries/Gauge Tech
    Inventor: Patricia E. Banker
  • Patent number: 9037773
    Abstract: An electronic apparatus is disclosed. The electronic apparatus comprises a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM) and a processing unit. The RAM stores a call transfer table, wherein the call transfer table comprising at least one transferred address in the RAM. The ROM stores at least one code to call one address of the call transfer table. The processing unit executes the code in the ROM and reads the transfer table accordingly, then transfers to run the data in the transferred address of the RAM.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 19, 2015
    Assignee: MEDIATEK INC.
    Inventors: Hsin-Chung Yeh, Cheng Huang Wu
  • Patent number: 9026751
    Abstract: According to the present invention, it is possible to construct a backup configuration of a particular application data, without influencing data of another application. A management computer is coupled to a host computer on which an application operates, and to a storage apparatus that includes a plurality of volume groups each having one or more logical volumes. At least one of the logical volumes is allocated to the application. The management computer includes a volume group overlapping use determination part and a backup policy determination part. When the backup of the volume group to which one logical volume belongs is configured, the volume group overlapping use determination part determines whether there is another application that uses the volume group. The backup policy determination part determines whether there is set, for another volume group, backup policy information same as that set for the application.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Misako Irisawa, Nobuhiro Maki, Masayasu Asano, Wataru Okada
  • Patent number: 8990523
    Abstract: A storage apparatus has a controller for controlling data input to and output from a plurality of storage devices composed of flash memories and the controller manages the number of times data are written to each storage device on the basis of each storage device, wherein when the controller receives a write command from an access requestor and if any of the storage devices is a storage device whose number of times of data write exceeds a threshold value, the controller determines that the data write mode is an intensive mode, selects the storage device, whose number of times of data write exceeds the threshold value, as a specified storage device and writes data, which are to be processed for the write command, intensively to the selected specified storage device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 24, 2015
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Yuri Nozaki, Masanobu Ikeda, Hitoshi Fukuguchi
  • Patent number: 8972671
    Abstract: A plurality of new snoop transaction types are described. Some include address information in the requests, and others include cache entry information in the requests. Some responses include tag address information, and some do not. Some provide tag address content on the data bus lines during the data portion of the transaction. These new snoop transaction types are very helpful during debug of a data processing system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 3, 2015
    Assignee: Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
    Inventors: William C. Moyer, Michael D. Snyder
  • Patent number: 8954649
    Abstract: A solution for managing a storage device based on a flash memory is proposed. A corresponding method starts with the step for mapping a logical memory space of the storage device (including a plurality of logical blocks) on a physical memory space of the flash memory (including a plurality of physical blocks, which are adapted to be erased individually). The physical blocks include a set of first physical blocks (corresponding to the logical blocks) and a set of second—or spare—physical blocks (for replacing each bad physical block that is unusable). The method continues by detecting each bad physical block. Each bad physical block is then discarded, so to prevent using the bad physical block for mapping the logical memory space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 2, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 10, 2015
    Assignee: SK Hynix Inc.
    Inventors: Sudeep Biswas, Angelo Di Sena, Domenico Manna
  • Patent number: 8949572
    Abstract: An effective address cache memory includes a TLB effective page memory configured to retain entry data including an effective page tag of predetermined high-order bits of an effective address of a process, and output a hit signal when the effective page tag matches the effective page tag from a processor; a data memory configured to retain cache data with the effective page tag or a page offset as a cache index; and a cache state memory configured to retain a cache state of the cache data stored in the data memory, in a manner corresponding to the cache index.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 3, 2015
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventors: Yasuhiko Kurosawa, Shigeaki Iwasa, Seiji Maeda, Nobuhiro Yoshida, Mitsuo Saito, Hiroo Hayashi
  • Patent number: 8943281
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for optimizing a backup chain using synthetic backups is described. In one embodiment, a method for creating synthetic incremental backups to optimize a backup chain comprises accessing a backup chain, which further comprises a plurality of incremental backups and determining schedule information defining a number of incremental backups to use to create one or more synthetic incremental backups representing the plurality of incremental backups from the backup chain, wherein the number of backups is defined by a numerical progression.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 27, 2015
    Assignee: Symantec Corporation
    Inventor: Russell R. Stringham
  • Patent number: 8930654
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for creating a map of files related to a virtual disk of a virtual machine comprising inspecting file system entries within at least one volume of the virtual disk; converting information related to file system entries into a map, where the map comprises file locations within a physical disk for the files related to the virtual disk.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 22, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 6, 2015
    Assignee: Symantec Corporation
    Inventors: Timothy Michael Naftel, David Teater
  • Patent number: 8918589
    Abstract: A memory controller (101) according to this invention includes: a command generation unit (102) which generates access commands each including a physical address, based on an access request including a logical address indicating a rectangular area in image data; and a command issuance unit (105) which issues, to a memory (0), the access commands generated by the command generation unit (102). The command generation unit (102) includes a group determination unit (104) which determines a group to which a bank including data to be accessed belongs, based on the physical address corresponding to the access request. The command generation unit (102) generates a pair of a first and a second access commands which share a prefetch buffer between two banks belonging to different groups, when data to be accessed is continuous across two banks belonging to different groups.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 23, 2014
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Koji Asai, Tetsuji Mochida, Daisuke Imoto, Takashi Yamada, Wataru Ohkoshi
  • Patent number: 8909871
    Abstract: A data processing system includes a system memory and a cache hierarchy that caches contents of the system memory. According to one method of data processing, a storage modifying operation having a cacheable target real memory address is received. A determination is made whether or not the storage modifying operation has an associated bypass indication. In response to determining that the storage modifying operation has an associated bypass indication, the cache hierarchy is bypassed, and an update indicated by the storage modifying operation is performed in the system memory. In response to determining that the storage modifying operation does not have an associated bypass indication, the update indicated by the storage modifying operation is performed in the cache hierarchy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 3, 2006
    Date of Patent: December 9, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Ravi K. Arimilli, Francis P. O'Connell, Hazim Shafi, Derek E. Williams, Lixin Zhang
  • Patent number: 8904116
    Abstract: A system and method is provided wherein, in one aspect, a currently-requested item of information is stored in a cache based on whether it has been previously requested and, if so, the time of the previous request. If the item has not been previously requested, it may not be stored in the cache. If the subject item has been previously requested, it may or may not be cached based on a comparison of durations, namely (1) the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the subject item and (2) for each other item in the cache, the duration of time between the current request and the previous request for the other item. If the duration associated with the subject item is less than the duration of another item in the cache, the subject item may be stored in the cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: Google Inc.
    Inventors: Timo Burkard, David Presotto
  • Patent number: 8898380
    Abstract: Disclosed is a RAID data checking system. I/O controllers to read data RAID data from the storage devices and transfer that data to virtual memory address ranges. The P+Q checking function receives the data sent to the virtual memory address ranges. However, instead of storing the incoming data, the P+Q checking function updates intermediate values of the P and Q redundant data calculations associated with the incoming data. When all of the strips have been received, the P+Q checking function will have completed the calculation of P and Q redundant data. In this case, after all the strips and the P or Q data have been received, the P+Q checking function will hold zeroes if all the data and the P and Q data was correct and hold non-zero values if there was an error.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: LSI Corporation
    Inventor: William Patrick Delaney