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:
Jun. 12, 2012
Filed:
Jul. 16, 2008
James L. Walker, Cedar Park, TX (US);
John J. Hawk, Austin, TX (US);
Alok Pant, Cedar Park, TX (US);
John Hentosh, Pflugerville, TX (US);
James L. Walker, Cedar Park, TX (US);
John J. Hawk, Austin, TX (US);
Alok Pant, Cedar Park, TX (US);
John Hentosh, Pflugerville, TX (US);
Dell Products, LP, Round Rock, TX (US);
Abstract
In a Uniform Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) environment, a system management mode (SMM) driver and a non-SMM driver may be installed for the same hardware device. Until the SMM driver is available, the non-SMM driver is configured to conduct input/output (IO) transactions directly with the hardware device. The non-SMM driver can utilize native UEFI services to receive a notification that the SMM driver is available. Upon receiving such notification, (or if the SMM driver was already available before the non-SMM driver), the non-SMM driver is reconfigured to redirect all IO requests to the SMM driver, which then conducts the corresponding IO transactions directly with the hardware device. Redirecting all non-SMM IO requests for a hardware device to the SMM driver for the hardware device limits direct access to the hardware device to only one driver, the SMM driver, thereby facilitating the integrity or atomicity of IO transactions.