Patent · US Expired

Addressing method and system for providing access of a very large size physical memory buffer to a number of processes

US5860144A · kind A · utility

30Cited by
5References
28Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 9, 1996
Grant dateJan 12, 1999
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 9, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F12/1009
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An addressing method and system for accessing a very large size physical buffer by a number of processes. The novel system is applicable within a computer system having an n-bit computer operating system (e.g., where n is 16, 32, 64, etc.). The addressing method allocates a relatively small window of virtual address space, for each software process, which is used to access the very large physical buffer using a relatively small amount of operating system memory overhead. A page frame number (PFN) table of the system address space maintains a listing of physical memory pages used to define the very large physical buffer. The PFN table is used by each process to translate between a relative page number (RPN) and an address of a physical memory page containing the record. The virtual address space ("window") of each process is used to access the physical memory buffer and contains a hash table, a virtual access control block (VACB) free list, and a VACB table. Entries of the VACB table indicate addresses of virtual memory for the process. Each process also has an associated private page table entry (PTE) table which maintains a mapping between its virtual pages and the physical pages.…

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