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. 18, 2013
Filed:
Sep. 02, 2009
Rex A. Flynn, Newton, MA (US);
Rex A. Flynn, Newton, MA (US);
Insyde Software Corp., Taipei, TW;
Abstract
A mechanism for making increased amounts of firmware available to a computer pre-boot is discussed. To increase the amount of firmware available pre-boot, a design decision is made during the build process as to which segments of the firmware need to be placed on the ROM part and which segments of the firmware can be located elsewhere. The segments of the firmware that are stored remotely from the ROM are referred to as 'virtual ROM modules'. Each of the virtual ROM modules is assigned a generated unique identifier, and a 'message digest' is constructed for each module using an algorithm such as MD5 or SHA-1. In the software build of the ROM image, the message digest-unique identifier pair created for each Virtual ROM module is used as a logical pointer for the virtual module. Additionally, a search path variable is placed into the ROM image in non-volatile storage. The search path provides for one or more locations in which to look for the Virtual ROM modules, and may be updated at a later point in time.