Address Formation Patents (Class 711/200)
  • Patent number: 8904096
    Abstract: A storage device able to make a redundant write operation of unselected data unnecessary and able to optimize an arrangement of pages to a state having a high efficiency for rewriting, wherein the storage device has a first memory unit, a second memory unit having a different access speed from the first memory, and a control circuit, wherein the control circuit has a function of timely moving the stored data in two ways between the first memory unit and the second memory unit having different access speeds in reading or rewriting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: December 2, 2014
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Toshiyuki Nishihara, Yoshio Sakai
  • Patent number: 8897573
    Abstract: A system and an article of manufacture for de-duplicating virtual machine image accesses include identifying one or more identical blocks in two or more images in a virtual machine image repository, generating a block map for mapping different blocks with identical content into a same block, deploying a virtual machine image by reconstituting an image from the block map and fetching any unique blocks remotely on-demand, and de-duplicating virtual machine image accesses by storing the deployed virtual machine image in a local disk cache.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2012
    Date of Patent: November 25, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Han Chen, Alexei A. Karve, Minkyong Kim, Andrzej P. Kochut, Hui Lei, Jayaram Kallapalayam Radhakrishnan, Zhiming Shen, Zhe Zhang
  • Patent number: 8886900
    Abstract: Various systems, processes, products, and techniques may be used to manage legacy data. In one general implementation, a system, process, and/or product for managing legacy data may include the ability to determine whether a data request has been received and, if a data request has been received, determine whether the data request is associated with legacy data of an external storage management system. If the data request is not associated with legacy data of an external storage management system, the system, process, and/or product may retrieve data from a local storage array, and if the data request is associated with legacy data of an external storage management system, the system, process, and/or product may request legacy data from an external storage management system. The system, process, and/or product may also generate a response to the data request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 11, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: David J. Craft
  • Patent number: 8874858
    Abstract: A reconfigurable interleaver is provided, configured to produce a sequence of interleaved addresses, configurable for at least two different interleaving patterns. The reconfigurable interleaver comprises a plurality of reconfigurable counters. The number of values that the counters count is configurable as are their start values. The interleaver further comprises a plurality of memory in which the counters indicate memory positions so that values may be retrieved. Computational elements compute an interleaved sequence of addresses in dependency on the retrieved values. By reconfiguring the counters and possibly changing the content of the memories, the interleaver may be configured for a different interleaving pattern.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 28, 2014
    Assignee: NXP, B.V.
    Inventor: Nur Engin
  • Patent number: 8868822
    Abstract: A data-processing method in a flash memory with a plurality of sectors, the method includes arranging first data which is not updated in a first sector at a leading portion of a second sector and adding a first identifier of the first data to the second sector by a memory control circuit when transferring data in the first sector to the second sector, the plurality of sectors including the first sector and the second sector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 21, 2014
    Assignee: Spansion LLC
    Inventor: Hiroyuki Komori
  • Patent number: 8862854
    Abstract: The invention relates to hardware decoders that efficiently expand a small number of input bits to a large number of output bits, while providing considerable flexibility in selecting the output instances. One main area of application of the invention is in pin-limited environments, such as field programmable gates array (FPGA) used with dynamic reconfiguration. The invention includes a mapping unit that is a circuit, possibly in combination with a reconfigurable memory device. The circuit has as input a z-bit source word having a value at each bit position and it outputs an n-bit output word, where n>z, where the value of each bit position of the n-bit output word is based upon the value of a pre-selected hardwired one of the bit positions in the x-bit word, where the said pre-selected hardwired bit positions is selected by a selector address.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2014
    Inventors: Ramachandran Vaidyanathan, Matthew Jordan
  • Patent number: 8843725
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method and apparatus for a storage system comprising at least one mobile random access storage device capable of storing first or second data. At least one docking station is associated with an address wherein the address is identifiable by at least one host computer. A first and second sub-address is associated with the at least one docking station wherein the first and second sub-addresses are identifiable by the at least one host computer. The first sub-address corresponds to a first virtual device adapted for storing the first data on a first virtual media. The second sub-address corresponds to a second virtual device adapted for storing the second data on a second virtual media wherein the second virtual media is a different media type from the first virtual media.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: September 23, 2014
    Assignee: Spectra Logic Corporation
    Inventors: Matthew Thomas Starr, Richard Douglas Rector, Nathan Christopher Thompson
  • Patent number: 8806132
    Abstract: An information processing device according to the present invention includes an operation unit that outputs an access request, a storage unit including a plurality of connection ports and a plurality of memories capable of a simultaneous parallel process that has an access unit of a plurality of word lengths for the connection ports, and a memory access control unit that distributes a plurality access addresses corresponding to the access request received for each processing cycle from the operation unit, and generates an address in a port including a discontinuous word by one access unit for each of the connection ports.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2012
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2014
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Yasuhiro Nishigaki
  • Patent number: 8799621
    Abstract: Memory address translation circuitry 14 performs a top down page table walk operation to translate a virtual memory address VA to a physical memory address PA using translation data stored in a hierarchy of translation tables 28, 32, 36, 38, 40, 42. A page size variable S is used to control the memory address translation circuitry 14 to operate with different sizes S of pages of physical memory addresses, pages of virtual memory address and translation tables. These different sizes may be all 4 kBs or all 64 kBs. The system may support multiple virtual machine execution environments. These virtual machine execution environments can independently set their own page size variable as can the page size of an associated hypervisor 62.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2014
    Assignee: ARM Limited
    Inventor: Richard Roy Grisenthwaite
  • Patent number: 8799617
    Abstract: A memory management unit comprises register and control logic and arranged to support a microprocessor controller unit accessing physical address space via an address bus wherein the microprocessor controller unit comprises a program counter having a first address size, the memory management unit wherein the register and control logic comprises a register having a second address size greater than the first address size and arranged to provide an extended address bus between the microprocessor controller unit and physical address space.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 1, 2006
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2014
    Assignee: Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
    Inventors: Stephen Pickering, Edward J. Hathaway, Christian Vetterli, Michael C. Wood
  • Patent number: 8775734
    Abstract: A virtual disk is comprised of segments of unused capacity of physical computer-readable storage media co-located with computing devices that are communicationally coupled to one another through network communications. The computing devices execute one or more of a client process, a storage process and a controller process. The controller processes manage the metadata of the virtual disk, including a virtual disk topology that defines the relationships between certain ones of the physical computer-readable storage media and a particular virtual disk. The client process provide data for storage to certain ones of the computing devices executing the storage processes, as defined by a virtual disk topology, and also read data from storage from those computing devices. The client process additionally expose the virtual disk in the same manner as any other computer-readable medium.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 15, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jeffrey B. Hamblin, Saurabh Gupta, Justin Neddo, Joseph Sherman
  • Patent number: 8776049
    Abstract: Method and apparatus for aligning addresses of resource sets in a memory space used by a software system. The resource sets are accessed by multiple layers of a software system and are each provided with a respective alignment requirement preferably comprising a power of two. A table preferably includes entries for each of the resource sets, and the table is sorted to provide a decreasing sequence beginning with the resource set having the greatest alignment requirement and ending with the resource set having the smallest alignment requirement. The resource sets are thereafter placed in the memory space in accordance with the decreasing sequence at localized addresses that align with the respective alignment requirements of the resource sets. Each resource within each resource set uses a localized, base address. The actual address within the memory space is preferably stored at a specified offset within a global structure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: July 8, 2014
    Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC
    Inventor: Michael Dean Walker
  • Patent number: 8769239
    Abstract: Systems and methods for re-mapping memory transactions are described. In an embodiment, a method includes receiving a memory request from a hardware subsystem to a memory, replacing a first identifier with a modified identifier in the memory request, and transmitting the memory request to the memory through a processor complex. The method further includes receiving a response from the memory, determining that the response corresponds to the memory request, replacing the modified identifier with the first identifier in the response, and transmitting the response to the hardware subsystem. In some embodiments, a system may be implemented as a system-on-a-chip (SoC). Devices suitable for using these systems include, for example, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, network appliances, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, e-book readers, televisions, and game consoles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Deniz Balkan, Gurjeet S. Saund
  • Patent number: 8769356
    Abstract: A memory device comprises a memory cell array and a bad page map. The memory cell array comprises a plurality of memory cells arranged in pages and columns, wherein the memory cell array is divided into a first memory block and a second memory block each corresponding to an array of the memory cells. The bad page map stores bad page location information indicating whether each of the pages of the first memory block is good or bad. A fail page address of the first memory block is replaced by a pass page address of the second memory block according to the bad page location information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Hak-Soo Yu, Chul-Woo Park, Uk-Song Kang, Joo-Sun Choi, Hong-Sun Hwang, Jong-Pil Son
  • Patent number: 8769217
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for passing information to a host system to suggest logical locations to allocate to a file are disclosed. Generally, when a host system determines a need to allocate a logical location to a file, the host system sends a non-data command to a memory system. In response, the memory system sends information to the host system that includes one or more logical locations to allocate to the file. By suggesting one or more logical locations to allocate to a file, the memory system may reduce a number of data consolidation or garbage collection operations that will need to be performed in the future, thereby improving performance of the memory system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: SanDisk Technologies Inc.
    Inventor: Sergey Anatolievich Gorobets
  • Patent number: 8756361
    Abstract: A disk drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a rotatable disk. A write operation is processed to write data on the disk using the head, wherein prior to writing the data on the disk, logical-to-physical mapping information is stored in a circular buffer, wherein the logical-to-physical mapping information identifies locations on the disk to write the data. A plurality of metadata files are written on the disk using the head, wherein the plurality of metadata files are interspersed with the data on the disk and each of the metadata files includes contents of the circular buffer at a time the metadata file is written on the disk. When the write operation is aborted, the logical-to-physical mapping information in the circular buffer is modified to identify the locations on the disk actually written.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: June 17, 2014
    Assignee: Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
    Inventors: Marcus A. Carlson, David C. Pruett
  • Patent number: 8751769
    Abstract: Techniques for efficiently generating addresses for pruned interleavers and pruned de-interleavers are described. In an aspect, a linear address may be mapped to an interleaved address for a pruned interleaver by determining the total number of invalid mappings corresponding to the linear address. The linear address may be summed with the total number of invalid mappings to obtain an intermediate address. The interleaved address for the pruned interleaver may then be determined based on a non-pruned interleaver function of the intermediate address. The pruned interleaver may be a pruned bit-reversal interleaver, a pruned Turbo interleaver composed of a bit-reversal function and a linear congruential sequence function, or some other type of interleaver. The total number of invalid mappings may be determined iteratively, and each iteration may be performed in different manners for different types of pruned interleaver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 10, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Mohammad Mansour
  • Patent number: 8745355
    Abstract: A memory system having a memory controller and several separate memory devices connected to the controller by a system bus. The memory devices each included an array of memory cells, addressing circuitry used to address the cells and an address storage circuit which stores a local address unique to each of the memory devices. The local addresses are sequentially assigned to the memory devices by selecting a first one of the devices and forwarding an address assign command to the selected device. A command decoder, having detected the address assign command, will permit a local address placed on the bus by the controller to be loaded into the selected memory device. This sequence will continue until all of the memory devices have been assigned local addresses at which time the memory devices can be accessed to perform memory read, program, erase and other operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 3, 2014
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Robert D. Norman, Vinod C. Lakhani
  • Patent number: 8738889
    Abstract: Embodiments of an invention for generating multiple address space identifiers per virtual machine to switch between protected micro-contexts are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving an instruction requiring an address translation; initiating, in response to receiving the instruction, a page walk from a page table pointed to by the contents of a page table pointer storage location; finding, during the page walk, a transition entry; storing the address translation and one of a plurality of address source identifiers in a translation lookaside buffer, the one of the plurality of address source identifiers based on one of a plurality of a virtual partition identifiers, at least two of the plurality of virtual partition identifiers associated with one of a plurality of virtual machines; and re-initiating the page walk.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 12, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 27, 2014
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Uday Savagaonkar, Madhavan Parthasarathy, Ravi Sahita, David Durham
  • Patent number: 8732436
    Abstract: A device for storing data includes a sequence generator configured to generate a first number sequence that is a pseudorandom number sequence, a cross-correlation unit configured to produce a second number sequence that is a cross-correlation between the first number sequence and a third number sequence, and a write and read unit configured to write the second number sequence in memory and read the second number sequence from the memory, wherein the cross-correlation unit is further configured to reconstruct the third number sequence by obtaining a cross-correlation between the first number sequence and the second number sequence read from the memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC
    Inventor: Tomoaki Ueda
  • Patent number: 8732431
    Abstract: The present disclosure includes methods for logical address translation, methods for operating memory systems, and memory systems. One such method includes receiving a command associated with a LA, wherein the LA is in a particular range of LAs and translating the LA to a physical location in memory using an offset corresponding to a number of physical locations skipped when writing data associated with a range of LAs other than the particular range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Martin L. Culley, Troy A. Manning, Troy D. Larsen
  • Patent number: 8732430
    Abstract: The disclosed embodiments provide a system that uses unused bits in a memory pointer. During operation, the system determines a set of address bits in a address space that will not be needed for addressing purposes during program operation. Subsequently, the system stores data associated with the memory pointer in this set of address bits. The system masks this set of address bits when using the memory pointer to access the memory address associated with the memory pointer. Storing additional data in unused pointer bits can reduce the number of memory accesses for a program and improve program performance and/or reliability.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 22, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 20, 2014
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Zoran Radovic, Graham Ricketson Murphy, Paul J. Jordan, John G. Johnson
  • Patent number: 8719490
    Abstract: A storage array, a storage system, and a data access method. A data access method of a storage device includes: transferring data input from a user interface chip to a non-volatile storage device through a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIE) link, where the user interface chip and the non-volatile storage device are connected to the PCIE link, and the non-volatile storage device includes a memory and a non-volatile storage medium; writing the data to the memory of the non-volatile storage device; and writing the data written in the memory of the non-volatile storage device to the non-volatile storage medium. The technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure are advantageous for reducing occupation of PCIE links due to data access and improving system performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Jitao Yang, Wei-Tai Chou
  • Patent number: 8719548
    Abstract: A method (and structure) of mapping a memory addressing of a multiprocessing system when it is emulated using a virtual memory addressing of another multiprocessing system includes accessing a local lookaside table (LLT) on a target processor with a target virtual memory address. Whether there is a “miss” in the LLT is determined and, with the miss determined in the LLT, a lock for a global page table is obtained.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Erik Richter Altman, Ravi Nair, John Kevin O'Brien, Kathryn Mary O'Brien, Peter Howland Oden, Daniel Arthur Prener, Sumeda Wasudeo Sathaye
  • Patent number: 8719544
    Abstract: A method of responding to an attempt to write a memory address including a target instruction which has been translated to a host instruction for execution by a host processor including the steps of marking a memory address including a target instruction which has been translated to a host instruction, detecting a memory address which has been marked when an attempt is made to write to the memory address, and responding to the detection of a memory address which has been marked by protecting a target instruction at the memory address until it has been assured that translations associated with the memory address will not be utilized before being updated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2011
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Inventors: Edmund J. Kelly, Robert F. Cmelik, Malcolm J. Wing
  • Patent number: 8719547
    Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention includes a memory management unit (MMU) having entries to store virtual address to physical address translations, where each entry includes a location indicator to indicate whether a memory location for the corresponding entry is present in a local or remote memory. In this way, a common virtual memory space can be shared between the two memories, which may be separated by one or more non-coherent links. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 6, 2014
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Gautham N. Chinya, Hong Wang, Deepak A. Mathaikutty, Jamison D. Collins, Ethan Schuchman, James P. Held, Ajay V. Bhatt, Prashant Sethi, Stephen F. Whalley
  • Publication number: 20140115225
    Abstract: A processor unit removes, responsive to obtaining a new address, an entry from a memory of a type of memory based on a comparison of a performance of the type of memory to different performances, each of the different performances associated with a number of other types of memory.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 18, 2012
    Publication date: April 24, 2014
    Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Rahul Chandrakar, Venkatesh Sainath, Vaidyanathan Srinivasan
  • Patent number: 8707132
    Abstract: An information processing apparatus comprising: a reception unit adapted to receive a packet containing first data to be stored in a storage unit, a first address indicating an address of second data held in the storage unit, and a second address indicating an address at which the first data is to be written in the storage unit; an access unit adapted to read out the second data from the storage unit based on the first address, and write the first data in the storage unit based on the second address; and a transmission unit adapted to replace the first data of the packet received by the reception unit with the second data read out by the access unit, and transmit the packet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2014
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Akio Nakagawa, Hisashi Ishikawa
  • Patent number: 8700882
    Abstract: A device for storing data includes a sequence generator configured to generate a first number sequence that is a pseudorandom number sequence, a cross-correlation unit configured to produce a second number sequence that is a cross-correlation between the first number sequence and a third number sequence, and a write and read unit configured to write the second number sequence in memory and read the second number sequence from the memory, wherein the cross-correlation unit is further configured to reconstruct the third number sequence by obtaining a cross-correlation between the first number sequence and the second number sequence read from the memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2014
    Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC
    Inventor: Tomoaki Ueda
  • Patent number: 8700807
    Abstract: A baseboard management controller is disclosed. The baseboard management controller adapted to monitor a host comprises a baseboard management control module, a memory controller and a video graphic array (VGA) module. The VGA module comprises a video controller, a decoder, a select circuit and a mapping circuit. The decoder receives a transaction signal from a first local bus and decodes a first address signal contained in the transaction signal. The select circuit selectively transfers data from one of the microprocessor bus, the video controller and the memory controller back to the first local bus according to a control signal. The mapping circuit being connected with the decoder maps the first address signal and a second address signal to a third address signal, updates the first address signal and transfers an updated transaction signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2012
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2014
    Assignee: ASPEED Technology Inc.
    Inventors: Hung-Ju Huang, Shu-An Huang Ho, Jen-Min Yuan
  • Patent number: 8700877
    Abstract: A method for thread address mapping in a parallel thread processor. The method includes receiving a thread address associated with a first thread in a thread group; computing an effective address based on a location of the thread address within a local window of a thread address space; computing a thread group address in an address space associated with the thread group based on the effective address and a thread identifier associated with a first thread; and computing a virtual address associated with the first thread based on the thread group address and a thread group identifier, where the virtual address is used to access a location in a memory associated with the thread address to load or store data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2014
    Assignee: Nvidia Corporation
    Inventors: Michael C. Shebanow, Yan Yan Tang, John R. Nickolls
  • Patent number: 8700846
    Abstract: The present invention is directed to a method and software for managing the host-to-volume mappings of a SAN storage system. The host-to-volume mappings of the SAN storage system are represented in mapping configuration components. The active mapping configuration component represents the current host-to-volume mapping for the SAN storage system. Only one mapping configuration component is active at a time. The host-to-volume mappings of a SAN storage system are changed by deactivating the active mapping configuration component and activating an inactive mapping configuration component that represents a different mapping configuration, effecting a repartition, repurpose, disaster recovery, or other business activity. This can be a scheduled task or performed in an on-demand manner. The mapping configuration components are managed and controlled through the management component of the SAN storage system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 5, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2014
    Assignee: Netapp, Inc.
    Inventors: Yanling Qi, Jason Sherman
  • Patent number: 8682471
    Abstract: A storage library is described that includes a tape magazine that possesses at least one spare slot and a number of other addressable slots that each contains a tape cartridge. Each addressable slot is mapped and made known to a host when the host is linked to the storage library. One of the addressable slots contains a tape cartridge that prior to being mapped as an addressable slot was formerly a spare slot unmapped to the host and the current spare slot was formerly mapped as an addressable slot.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 27, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 25, 2014
    Assignee: Spectra Logic Corporation
    Inventors: Matthew Thomas Starr, Nathan Christopher Thompson, Mark Lorin Lantry, Daniel Spencer Zmolek
  • Patent number: 8671264
    Abstract: A storage control device for controlling the storage device including a medium for storing data, logical address information, and address translation information and a memory for storing the address translation information read from the medium includes a first receiver for receiving a write request including logical address information, a first sending module for sending a read request including the logical address information of the write request to the storage device, a second receiver for receiving data and logical address information stored in the medium in accordance with the read request from the storage device, and a second sending module for sending an instruction to cause the storage device to write the address translation information stored in the medium into the memory when the logical address information received by the second receiver is different from logical address information included in the write request.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 11, 2014
    Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
    Inventors: Eisaku Takahashi, Teiji Yoshida
  • Patent number: 8627041
    Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for performing a memory access request to compressed data within a virtually mapped memory system comprising an arbitrary number of partitions. A virtual address is mapped to a linear physical address, specified by a page table entry (PTE). The PTE is configured to store compression attributes, which are used to locate compression status for a corresponding physical memory page within a compression status bit cache. The compression status bit cache operates in conjunction with a compression status bit backing store. If compression status is available from the compression status bit cache, then the memory access request proceeds using the compression status. If the compression status bit cache misses, then the miss triggers a fill operation from the backing store. After the fill completes, memory access proceeds using the newly filled compression status information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Nvidia Corporation
    Inventors: David B. Glasco, Peter B. Holmqvist, George R. Lynch, Patrick R. Marchand, Karan Mehra, James Roberts, Cass W. Everitt, Steven E. Molnar
  • Patent number: 8621152
    Abstract: A system comprising a processor, a first cache, and a second cache. The processor is configured to perform a processing task according to data stored in a main memory and output a command associated with the processing task. The first cache is located between the processor and the main memory and is configured to store a first portion of the data stored in the main memory and provide a first indication of whether the command has been completed at the first cache. The second cache is located between the first cache and the main memory and is configured to store a second portion of the data stored in the main memory and provide a second indication of whether the command has been completed at the second cache. The processor is configured to perform the processing task in response to receiving both the first indication and the second indication.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Marvell International Ltd.
    Inventors: Hong-Yi Chen, Geoffrey Yung
  • Patent number: 8612717
    Abstract: A storage system includes: a data storing means configured to store storage target data and also store address data so as to be tree-structured, the address data being based on a content and storing position of data to be referred to, and the address data referring to the storage target data or other address data; an operation log generating means configured to generate an operation log that represents a content of an operation of storing the storage target data into the data storing means and a content of an operation of storing the tree-structured address data referring to the storage target data into the data storing means; and a file system committing means configured to store the storage target data and the tree-structured address data into the data storing means based on the operation log.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Yoshiaki Noguchi
  • Patent number: 8607025
    Abstract: A data structure for enforcing consistent per-physical page cacheability attributes is disclosed. The data structure is used with a method for enforcing consistent per-physical page cacheability attributes, which maintains memory coherency within a processor addressing memory, such as by comparing a desired cacheability attribute of a physical page address in a PTE against an authoritative table that indicates the current cacheability status. This comparison can be made at the time the PTE is inserted into a TLB. When the comparison detects a mismatch between the desired cacheability attribute of the page and the page's current cacheability status, corrective action can be taken to transition the page into the desired cacheability state.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2013
    Inventors: Alexander C. Klaiber, David Dunn
  • Patent number: 8607022
    Abstract: Systems and methods for processing quality-of-service (QoS) information of memory transactions are described. In an embodiment, a method comprises receiving identification information and quality-of-service information corresponding to a first or original memory transaction transmitted from a hardware subsystem to a memory, receiving a given memory transaction from a processor complex that does not support quality-of-service encoding, determining whether the given memory transaction matches the original memory transaction, and appending the stored quality-of-service information to the given memory transaction in response to the given memory transaction matching the original memory transaction. In some embodiments, a system may be implemented as a system-on-a-chip (SoC). Devices suitable for using these systems include, for example, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, network appliances, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, e-book readers, televisions, and game consoles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2013
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Deniz Balkan, Gurjeet S. Saund, Vijay Gupta
  • Patent number: 8601226
    Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method for creating an image of a virtual machine. The method identifies a particular computer system operating as a virtual machine with a particular configuration on a hardware resource of a hosting system that includes several hardware resources. The method captures data representing the particular computer system. Capturing the data includes copying a particular section of the data, computing a checksum for the particular section of the data, and streaming the particular section with the computed checksum to a storage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 3, 2013
    Assignee: Gogrid, LLC
    Inventors: Paul Lappas, John M. Keagy, Justin Kitagawa
  • Patent number: 8595465
    Abstract: Some of the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for predicting, for a first virtual address, a first descriptor based at least in part on the one or more past descriptors associated with one or more past virtual addresses; and determining, for the first virtual address, a first physical address based at least in part on the predicted first descriptor. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 26, 2013
    Assignee: Marvell Israel (M.I.S.L) Ltd.
    Inventor: Moshe Raz
  • Patent number: 8578097
    Abstract: A scatter/gather technique optimizes unstructured streaming memory accesses, providing off-chip bandwidth efficiency by accessing only useful data at a fine granularity, and off-loading memory access overhead by supporting address calculation, data shuffling, and format conversion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 24, 2011
    Date of Patent: November 5, 2013
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Daehyun Kim, Christopher J. Hughes, Yen-Kuang Chen, Partha Kundu
  • Patent number: 8572334
    Abstract: An improved integrated circuit is provided to facilitate communication between a microprocessor and a non-volatile memory. The integrated circuit comprises at least one lock status register, at least one control register and a memory controller. The lock status register comprises a plurality of lock status bits representing whether or not a corresponding unit of storage in the volatile memory has been locked. The control register stores configurable control information for the memory controller, including sizing information defining the size of the unit of storage. The memory controller is configured to receive a modification request to modify data in the non-volatile memory; determine a target unit of storage in the non-volatile memory based on a target memory address associated with the modification request; determine from the lock status register whether the target unit of storage has been locked; and implement the modification request only if the target unit storage has not been locked.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: October 29, 2013
    Assignee: Psion, Inc.
    Inventors: Bradley Scott, Lawrence David Forsyth, Steve Maddigan, Dimitri Epassa
  • Patent number: 8566563
    Abstract: Memory address translation circuitry 14 performs a top down page table walk operation to translate a virtual memory address VA to a physical memory address PA using translation data stored in a hierarchy of translation tables 28, 32, 36, 38, 40, 42. A page size variable S is used to control the memory address translation circuitry 14 to operate with different sizes S of pages of physical memory addresses, pages of virtual memory address and translation tables. These different sizes may be all 4 kBs or all 64 kBs. The system may support multiple virtual machine execution environments. These virtual machine execution environments can independently set their own page size variable as can the page size of an associated hypervisor 62.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 22, 2013
    Assignee: ARM Limited
    Inventor: Richard Roy Grisenthwaite
  • Patent number: 8554982
    Abstract: A storage device able to make a redundant write operation of unselected data unnecessary and able to optimize an arrangement of pages to a state having a high efficiency for rewriting, wherein the storage device has a first memory unit, a second memory unit having a different access speed from the first memory, and a control circuit, wherein the control circuit has a function of timely moving the stored data in two ways between the first memory unit and the second memory unit having different access speeds in reading or rewriting.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 18, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 8, 2013
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Toshiyuki Nishihara, Yoshio Sakai
  • Patent number: 8533404
    Abstract: Implementations of a file system that is supported by a non-volatile memory that is directly connected to a memory bus, and placed side by side with a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 15, 2009
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Jeremy P. Condit, Edmund B. Nightingale, Benjamin Lee, Engin Ipek, Christopher Frost, Doug Burger
  • Patent number: 8533419
    Abstract: The virtual volume is a virtual logical volume that conforms to Thin Provisioning, and is a logical volume configured from a plurality of virtual areas and used by a plurality of applications. In a case where the storage apparatus receives a write request comprising write-destination information for identifying a write-destination virtual area in the virtual volume, and, in addition, the write-destination virtual area is an unallocated virtual area, the storage apparatus selects a medium, which corresponds to the write to the write-destination virtual area and/or the identification information of the source of this write, from a plurality of media, which have different performances and which are each configured from two or more real areas, and allocates a real area from the selected medium to the write-destination virtual area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 11, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 10, 2013
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Katsutoshi Asaki, Nobuo Beniyama, Takato Kusama
  • Patent number: 8516203
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus for passing information to a host system to suggest logical locations to allocate to a file are disclosed. Generally, when a host system determines a need to allocate a logical location to a file, the host system sends a non-data command to a memory system. In response, the memory system sends information to the host system that includes one or more logical locations to allocate to the file. By suggesting one or more logical locations to allocate to a file, the memory system may reduce a number of data consolidation or garbage collection operations that will need to be performed in the future, thereby improving performance of the memory system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 13, 2008
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2013
    Assignee: SanDisk Technologies Inc.
    Inventor: Sergey A. Gorobets
  • Patent number: 8495634
    Abstract: In a method for the management of tasks in a decentralized data network with a plurality of nodes for carrying out the tasks, resources are distributed based on a mapping rule, in particular a hash function. A task that is to be suspended is distributed by dividing the process image of the task into segments and by distributing the segments over the nodes using the mapping rule. Thus, a distributed swap space is created so that tasks can also be carried out on nodes whose swap space is not sufficient on its own. The method can be used in embedded systems with a limited storage capacity and/or in a voltage distribution system, wherein the nodes are, for example, switching units in the voltage distribution system. The method can also be used in any other technical systems such as, for example, a power generation system, an automation system and the like.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2013
    Assignee: Atos IT Solutions and Services GmbH
    Inventors: Sebastian Dippl, Christoph Gerdes, Gerd Völksen
  • Patent number: 8495334
    Abstract: A pattern matching accelerator (PMA) for assisting software threads to find the presence and location of strings in an input data stream that match a given pattern. The patterns are defined using regular expressions that are compiled into a data structure comprised of rules subsequently processed by the PMA. The patterns to be searched in the input stream are defined by the user as a set of regular expressions. The patterns to be searched are grouped in pattern context sets. The sets of regular expressions which define the pattern context sets are compiled to generate a rules structure used by the PMA hardware. The rules are compiled before search run time and stored in main memory, in rule cache memory within the PMA or a combination thereof. For each input character, the PMA executes the search and returns the search results.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 6, 2011
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2013
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Giora Biran, Christoph Hagleitner, Timothy Hume Heil, Jan Van Lunteren