Patents by Inventor Maria Lucia Melo

Maria Lucia Melo has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Flash ROM sharing between processor and microcontroller during booting and handling warm-booting events
    Patent number: 6154838
    Abstract: A computer system having a processor, a microcontroller, a flash ROM is provided with an address remapper for handling warm-boot events, and an arbiter for selectively assigning the ownership of the flash ROM to either the microprocessor or the microcontroller. The arbiter assigns the flash ROM initially to the microcontroller when power is initially provided to the system. After the flash ROM boots up and checks the integrity of the flash ROM and updates the content of the flash ROM with valid firmware if necessary, the microcontroller releases the flash ROM to the microprocessor to enable the computer system to proceed with the normal boot-up process. In this process, various system self tests are performed. Next, the microprocessor copies or shadows one or more portions of the flash ROM BIOS into a main memory array. After the shadow operation, the processor sets a remap bit to indicate that the ROM BIOS content has been copied into the main memory array.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 5, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2000
    Inventors: Hung Q. Le, David J. Delisle, Maria Lucia Melo
  • Flash ROM sharing between processor and microcontroller during booting and handling warm-booting events
    Patent number: 5819087
    Abstract: A computer system having a processor, a microcontroller, a flash ROM is provided with an address remapper for handling warm-boot events, and an arbiter for selectively assigning the ownership of the flash ROM to either the microprocessor or the microcontroller. The arbiter assigns the flash ROM initially to the microcontroller when power is initially provided to the system. After the flash ROM boots up and checks the integrity of the flash ROM and updates the content of the flash ROM with valid firmware if necessary, the microcontroller releases the flash ROM to the microprocessor to enable the computer system to proceed with the normal boot-up process. In this process, various system self tests are performed. Next, the microprocessor copies or shadows one or more portions of the flash ROM BIOS into a main memory array. After the shadow operation, the processor sets a remap bit to indicate that the ROM BIOS content has been copied into the main memory array.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1996
    Date of Patent: October 6, 1998
    Assignee: Compaq Computer Corporation
    Inventors: Hung Q. Le, David J. Delisle, Maria Lucia Melo