Abstract: A system and method for memory management in a high-speed network environment. Multiple packets are interleaved in data streams and sent to a Memory Manager System. Read and write requests are queued in FIFO buffers. Subsets of these requests are grouped and ordered to optimize processing. This method employs a special arbitration scheme between read and write accesses. Read and write requests are treated as atomic. Memory bank selection is optimized for the request being processed. Alternating between memory bank sets is done to minimize bank conflicts. Link list updates are pipelined. Multiple independent link lists may be supported with the inclusion of a link list identifier. Arbitration between read and write requests continues until the group is exhausted. Then, processing is repeated for the next requests in the BRAM (buffer memories).

Abstract: A method is disclosed for free memory allocation in a linked list memory scheme. Free lists are link lists designating available memory for data storage. This method leverages the ability to read memory while concurrently updating a pointer to the next location. Multiple free lists are used to reduce the number of cycles necessary to allocate memory. The number of entries in each free list is tracked. When memory becomes available, it is spliced into the shortest free list to achieve balance between the free lists. The free list structure disclosed consists of head, head +1, and tail pointers where head +1 is the next logical address pointed to from the head pointer location. The free list consists only of the head and tail pointers. Each link list structure of memory to be freed contains the head, head +1, and tail pointers. This allows us to simultaneously allocate and free with only 1 memory cycle.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for moving and/or resizing logical buffers that comprise a memory space without the loss of data. Each buffer comprises a linear and contiguous set of storage locations, and operates according to a FIFO priority scheme, using a read address pointer to indicate the location from which data is read from the buffer and a write address pointer indicating the address into which data is written. A buffer is relocated or resized within the memory space by changing the base location address (defining the lowest storage location comprising the buffer) and/or the top location address (defining the highest memory location within the buffer) into free storage locations. To accomplish this relocation or resizing without the loss of data, the read address is first checked to determine if it bears an appropriate relationship to the new base and top memory locations.