The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 01, 1998
Filed:
Nov. 06, 1996
Michael E Pierce, Orangevale, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and a method for upgrading the memory contents of a removable computer card in a computer system. The computer card includes a specialized random access memory and circuitry that allows the computer system read only access to the contents of a first portion of the specialized random access memory device during normal operations. To upgrade the contents in the specialized random access memory, the circuitry allows the computer system write access privileges to the entire random access memory device. The computer card also includes a microcontroller which controls read and write access requests by the computer system to the specialized random access memory device. The microcontroller is placed in a reduced power consumption state when the computer system is performing read only access to the specialized random access memory device so that overall power consumption by the card in the computer system is reduced.