Realtime memory management via locking realtime threads and related data structures

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method and system for minimizing memory access latency during realtime processing. The method includes a mechanism for marking information that will be accessed during realtime processing. The marked information may include code, data, heaps, stacks, as well as other information. The method includes support for locking down all of the marked information so that it is present in a computing machine's physical memory so that no page faults will be incurred during realtime processing. The method additionally enables realtime processing code to allocate and free memory in a non-blocking manner. It does so by enabling the creation of heaps for use during realtime processing, wherein each heap supports allocating and freeing memory in a non-blocking fashion. Each heap tracks freed memory blocks using individual non-blocking tracking lists for each memory block size supported by that heap. If a memory allocation request to a heap can be satisfied by using a memory block available on one of the lists of freed memory blocks, the method includes allocating the available memory block by popping the memory block from the tracking list. If no freed memory blocks of the desired size are available, then the method includes traversing a separate set of source memory blocks for that heap, and making the allocation in a non-blocking fashion from one of those blocks.