Virident Systems, Inc.

Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation

Spansion Llc.

Kenneth Alan Okin

Vijay Karamcheti

Kumar Ganapathy

Rajesh Parekh

Ashish Singhai

Ashwin Narasimha

Ruban Kanapathippillai

George Moussa

Gregory Charles Yancey

Sean Michael O'Mullan

Bradley Edman Sundahl

Sandeep Sharma

Krishanth Skandakumaran

Rajendra Prasad Mishra

Sriram Rupanagunta

John C Manton

Srikant Sadasivam

Anthony N Zacconi

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for implementing redundancy in memory controllers. The disclosed systems and methods utilize a row of memory blocks, such that each memory block in the row is associated with an independent media unit. Failures of the media units are not correlated, and therefore, a failure in one unit does not affect the data stored in the other units. Parity information associated with the data stored in the memory blocks is stored in a separate memory block. If the data in a single memory block has been corrupted, the data stored in the remaining memory blocks and the parity information is used to retrieve the corrupted data.

Methods and systems for implementing redundancy in memory controllers

A method, apparatus, and manufacture for memory device startup is provided. Flash memory devices are configured such that, upon the power supply voltage reaching a pre-determined level, each flash memory is arranged to load the random access memory with instructions for the flash memory, and then execute a first portion of the instructions for the flash memory. After executing the first portion of the instructions for the flash memory, each separate subset of the flash memories waits for a separate, distinct delay period. For each flash memory, after the delay period expires for that flash memory, the flash memory executes a second portion of the instructions for the flash memory.

Method and apparatus for staggered start-up of a predefined, random, or dynamic number of flash memory devices

An apparatus includes a printed circuit board with a plurality of printed circuit board traces, a memory controller mounted on the printed circuit board coupled to one or more of the plurality of printed circuit board traces, a plurality of non-volatile type of memory integrated circuits coupled to the printed circuit board, and a plurality of support integrated circuits coupled between the memory controller and the plurality of non-volatile type of memory integrated circuits.

Apparatus with a memory controller configured to control access to randomly accessible non-volatile memory

In one embodiment of the invention, a memory apparatus is disclosed. The memory apparatus includes a memory array, a block read/write controller, and a random access read memory controller. The memory array is block read/write accessible and random read accessible. The block read/write controller is coupled between the memory array and an external interconnect. The block read/write controller performs block read/write operations upon the memory array to access blocks of consecutive memory locations therein. The random access read memory controller is coupled between the memory array and the external interconnect in parallel with the block read/write access controller. The random access read memory controller performs random read memory operations upon the memory array to access random memory locations therein.

Network computer systems with power management

Embodiments of the present invention receive I/O commands expressed in either vendor-specific or non-vendor-specific protocols and normalize them into a common format for execution by different memory devices. Embodiments of the present invention identify these I/O commands using parameters common to both types of protocols. In this fashion, embodiments store normalized commands in data structures for execution by memory devices in which the normalized commands represent instructions for performing an action corresponding with execution of the original I/O command. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention save resources with respect to hardware and software maintenance costs.

Method and system for a common processing framework for memory device controllers

A read writeable random accessible non-volatile memory module includes a printed circuit board with an edge connector that can be plugged into a socket of a printed circuit board. The read writeable random accessible non-volatile memory modules further include a plurality of read writable non-volatile memory devices.

Read writeable randomly accessible non-volatile memory modules

In one implementation, flash memory chips are provided with an operating power supply voltage to substantially match a power supply voltage expected at an edge connector of a dual inline memory module. The one or more of the flash memory chips and a memory support application integrated circuit (ASIC) may be mounted together into a multi-chip package for integrated circuits. The one or more flash memory chips and the memory support ASIC may be electrically coupled together by routing one or more conductors between each in the multi-chip package. The multi-chip package may be mounted onto a printed circuit board (PCB) of a flash memory DIMM to reduce the number of packages mounted thereto and reduce the height of the flash memory DIMM. The number of printed circuit board layers may also be reduced, such as by integrating address functions into the memory support ASIC.

Front/back control of integrated circuits for flash dual inline memory modules

Embodiments of the present invention are operable to efficiently schedule memory device commands, such as flash memory device commands, while taking into account the interdependencies of processing such commands. As such embodiments of the present invention order commands to make sure that data is written and read from memory devices in a coherent fashion using command groups. Commands within such command groups are scheduled concurrently or in parallel. In this fashion, embodiments of the present invention promote efficient execution of memory device commands while maintaining any required arbitrary ordering requirements.

Method and system for efficient common processing in memory device controllers

A command from an application is received to access a data structure associated with one or more virtual addresses mapped to main memory. A first subset of the virtual addresses for the data structure having constituent addresses that are mapped to the symmetric memory components and a second subset of the virtual addresses for the data structure having constituent addresses that are mapped to the asymmetric memory components are identified. Data associated with the virtual address from the first physical addresses and data associated with the virtual addresses from the second physical addresses are accessed. The data associated with the symmetric and asymmetric memory components is accessed by the application without providing the application with an indication of whether the data is accessed within the symmetric memory component or the asymmetric memory component.

Seamless application access to hybrid main memory

A computer system is disclosed including a printed circuit board (PCB) including a plurality of traces, at least one processor mounted to the PCB to couple to some of the plurality of traces, a heterogeneous memory channel including a plurality of sockets coupled to a memory channel bus of the PCB, and a memory controller coupled between the at least one processor and the heterogeneous memory channel. The heterogeneous memory channel includes a plurality of sockets coupled to a memory channel bus of the PCB. The plurality of sockets are configured to receive a plurality of different types of memory modules. The memory controller may be a programmable heterogeneous memory controller to flexibly adapt to the memory channel bus to control access to each of the different types of memory modules in the heterogeneous memory channel.

Methods of communicating to different types of memory modules in a memory channel

Main memory is managed by receiving a command from an application to read data associated with a virtual address that is mapped to the main memory. A memory controller determines that the virtual address is mapped to one of the symmetric memory components of the main memory, and accesses memory use characteristics indicating how the data associated with the virtual address has been accessed, The memory controller determines that the data associated with the virtual address has access characteristics suited to an asymmetric memory component of the main memory and loads the data associated with the virtual address to the asymmetric memory component of the main memory. After the loading and using the memory management unit, a command is received from the application to read the data associated with the virtual address, and the data associated with the virtual address is retrieved from the asymmetric memory component.

Growing community of inventors

Saratoga, CA, United States of America

Kenneth Alan Okin