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:
Dec. 07, 1999
Filed:
Nov. 21, 1997
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A shared interface to a non-volatile memory including a first storage area for BIOS and a second storage area (e.g., for multimedia data) provides an integrated configuration which saves the cost and space of duplicating memory elements to support multiple data and program types in personal computers. The BIOS information is shadowed from the non-volatile memory to a second memory (e.g., a PC main memory). Thereafter, the BIOS information is accessed in the second memory and the information of the second storage area is accessed via the shared interface. The storage may be integrated upon personal computer system boards without a degradation in performance or an increase in pin count of the board memory because the same pins are used at different times for different memory portions. Accordingly, a storage system is provided to meet the demands of increasing storage requirements without a corresponding increase in cost, space or performance.