Patents by Inventor Scott B. Swaney

Scott B. Swaney 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).

  • Patent number: 7343534
    Abstract: A method for deferred logging of machine data following an error or event in order to capture critical information for that error or event treats the data as persistent and it does not get logged until a disruption occurs to the system (e.g. system reset, restart, deactivation, or powered-down). This way, important debug data can be held in the hardware or software, without a need for complicated hardware and code for logging this debug data. Methods are also disclosed for setting a switch to indicate deferred logging is required, referencing the log data with the original event information, calling home with the debug data, resetting the deferred logging switch, setting the deferred logging switch manually, viewing whether the switch is already set, and supporting different kinds of switches.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 27, 2004
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2008
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Patrick J. Meaney, Kurt A. Grassmann, Oliver Marquardt, Scott B. Swaney
  • Patent number: 7200742
    Abstract: A method for creating precise exceptions including checkpointing an exception causing instruction. The checkpointing results in a current checkpointed state. The current checkpointed state is locked. It is determined if any of a plurality of registers require restoration to the current checkpointed state. One or more of the registers are restored to the current checkpointed state in response to the results of the determining indicating that the one or more registers require the restoring. The execution unit is restarted at the exception handler or the next sequential instruction dependent on whether traps are enabled for the exception.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 10, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2007
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Fadi Y. Busaba, Michael J. Mack, John G. Rell, Jr., Eric M. Schwarz, Chung-Lung K. Shum, Timothy J. Slegel, Scott B. Swaney, Sheryll H. Veneracion
  • Patent number: 7084660
    Abstract: A method and system are provided for accelerated detection of soft error rates (SER) in integrated circuits (IC's) due to transient particle emission. An integrated circuit is packaged for accelerated transient particle emission by doping the underfill thereof with a transient-particle-emitting material having a predetermined emission rate. The emission rate is substantially constant over a predetermined period of time for testing. Accelerated transient-particle-emission testing is performed on the integrated circuit. Single-event upsets due to soft errors are detected, and a quantitative measurement of SER is determined.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2006
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jerry D. Ackaret, Richard B. Bhend, David F. Heidel, Naoko Pia Sanda, Scott B. Swaney, Jane Jones, legal representative, Theodore H. Zabel, deceased
  • Patent number: 6968709
    Abstract: A method and system of cooling hardware, sensing hardware, and supporting code streams that enables a non-redundant liquid cooling system to be used seemlessly in conjunction with an air cooling backup solution. The result offers system speed and reliability benefits of liquid cooling except for the brief occasions when the primary cooling system has failed and air cooling takes over. Until the liquid cooling is repaired, system clocks are automatically slowed to be compatible with the circuit speeds possible at the higher temperatures associated with air cooling. When the liquid cooling is repaired, the system clocks are automatically returned to their normal fast state. Depending on the circuit technology used, a supplied voltage may be varied while being air cooled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 29, 2005
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Gary F. Goth, Daniel J. Kearney, Kevin P. Low, Udo H. G. Meyer, Scott B. Swaney
  • Patent number: 6952763
    Abstract: An exemplary embodiment of the invention is a method for holding up recovery unit (R-unit) operands for a minimum number of cycles, until all prior updates have completed, by comparing addresses in at least one queue and interlocking valid R-unit register address matches. The method includes receiving a plurality of R-unit register addresses and storing these R-unit register addresses in at least one queue. This method includes a write queue, a read queue, and a pre-write queue. Further, this method requires accessing these queues and comparing the R-unit register addresses therein. After the addresses are compared, the method determines whether there is a valid match between the R-unit register addresses and if so, implementing one of more interlocks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2000
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2005
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Scott B. Swaney, Mark S. Farrell, Robert F. Hatch, David P. Hillerud, Charles F. Webb
  • Patent number: 6671793
    Abstract: An exemplary embodiment of the invention is a method and system for managing a result returned from a translator co-processor to a recovery unit of a central processor. The computer system has a pipelined computer processor and a pipelined central processor, which executes an instruction set in a hardware controlled execution unit and executes an instruction set in a milli-mode architected state with a millicode sequence of instructions in the hardware controlled execution unit. The central processor initiates a request to the translator co-processor a cycle after decode of a perform translator operation instruction in the millicode sequence. The translator co-processor processes the perform translator operation instruction to generate a perform translator operation result. The translator co-processor returns the results to a recovery unit of the central processor. The recovery unit stores the perform translator operation result in a system register.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2000
    Date of Patent: December 30, 2003
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Scott B. Swaney, Mark S. Farrell, John D. MacDougall, Hans-Juergen Muenster, Charles F. Webb
  • Patent number: 6311311
    Abstract: A method for verifying all intermediate results of a set of architected registers at the end of an instruction stream, even if the final values do not depend on the values of all intermediate results, using a single MISR (Multiple Input Shift Register) to generate a signature of all updates to multiple architected registers. Single instructions update multiple registers across multiple machine cycles, and an accumulation register allows order independence of partial results. A register update consists of the data to be written, an address identifying which register is to be updated, and controls to identify if this is the last register update that will be done by the current instruction. For each cycle, logic evaluates the update controls to select what will be gated into the accumulation register and also sets MISR control latches to tell how to update the MISR the next cycle. The latched MISR controls select whether the MISR will clear, hold, or evaluate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 30, 2001
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Scott B. Swaney, William V. Huott, Bruce Wile