Patent · US Expired

Electronic circuit for extending the addressing capacity of a processor

US4805092A · kind A · utility

9Cited by
18References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateApr 30, 1986
Grant dateFeb 14, 1989
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 30, 2006

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F12/0292
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The electronic circuit connects a processor to a high-capacity memory of 1 Megabyte. The processor may be of the 8 bit type, with a 16 bit address bus (A0-A15). The memory is subdivided into 256 segments each having a capacity of 4 Kbytes which can be directly addressed by the processor by means of 12 (A0-A11) of the 16 lines of the address bus. An auxiliary RAM is interposed between the processor and has 1 Mbyte memory and comprises sixteen 8 bit registers (R0-R15), which can be addressed by means of the other four lines (A12-A15), of the address bus. By means of the 8 bit data bus (D0-D7), the 16 registers of the RAM store the numbers of those 16 segments out of the 256 segments of the 1 Mbyte memory, which from time to time are connected to the processor. In this way the processor, while being able to address only 64 Kbytes of memory at a time, has the whole of the 1 Mbyte memory available. The circuit can be applied to data processing and word processing units and electronic typewriters.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.