Patent · US Expired

System, apparatus and method for reclaiming memory holes in memory composed of arbitrarily-sized memory devices

US7240179B1 · kind B1 · utility

2Cited by
7References
6Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 13, 2004
Grant dateJul 3, 2007
Priority date
Expiry dateNov 24, 2025

Classification

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

Abstract

A system, apparatus, and method are disclosed for increasing the physical memory address space accessible to a processor, at least in part, by translating linear addresses associated with a memory hole into a subset of physical memory addresses that otherwise is inaccessible as system memory by a processor. In one embodiment, a memory controller reclaims memory holes in a system memory divided into ranges of linear addresses, where the system memory includes a number of arbitrarily-sized memory devices. The memory controller includes a memory configuration evaluator configured to determine a translated memory hole size for a memory hole, the memory hole including restricted linear addresses that translate into a subset of physical addresses. Also, memory configuration evaluator can be configured to form adjusted ranges to translate at least one linear address into a subset of physical addresses. As such, the system memory increases by at least the subset of physical addresses.

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