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:
Aug. 20, 2002
Filed:
Sep. 30, 1999
Cameron J. Esfahani, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Byron W. Pang, Los Gatos, CA (US);
Paul M. Resch, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
Methods and apparatuses for controlling power consumption in a digital processing system. In one aspect of the invention, an exemplary method includes using a non-volatile memory of the digital processing system (DPS) as a virtual memory of a volatile random access memory (RAM) of the DPS, determining a selection of a reduced power consumption state, storing, in response to the selection and through a virtual memory process, data from the volatile RAM to the non-volatile memory, and reducing power to at least one element of the data processing system after the storing, wherein the storing includes determining whether to store the data to the non-volatile memory by determining if first data previously stored as virtual memory in the non-volatile memory is valid (not dirty) after the selection.