Computer start up memory
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsYat H. Chan, Hung Q. Phu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides a computer system with random access memory at power up and a method for providing random access memory for use by the processor during initialization of the dynamic random access memory. A static random access memory unit is provided and coupled to the processor. It is assigned memory locations which overlay a portion of read only memory address space. BIOS code and selection logic provide signals to select either the read only memory or the static random access memory so that initialization code has sufficient random access memory to operate efficiently while it initializes the dynamic random access memory.
Claims14
A computer system comprising:
- initialization memory containing initialization code,
- a processor coupled to said initialization memory for executing said initialization code,
- a static random access memory coupled to said processor for use in executing said initialization code.
A method for operating a computer system comprising;
- providing initialization software in a initialization memory coupled to a processor,
- providing static random access memory coupled to the processor,
- executing the initialization code in the processor while using the static random access memory to store and retrieve variables needed by the code.
A computer system comprising:
- dynamic random access memory,
- initialization memory containing initialization code for initializing the dynamic random access memory at system startup, and
- a static random access memory functional at system startup.
A computer system comprising:
- dynamic random access memory,
- initialization memory containing initialization code for initializing the dynamic random access memory at system startup,
- a processor coupled to said initialization memory for executing said initialization code,
- a static random access memory coupled to said processor for use in executing said initialization code, said static random access memory connected to and powered by a system power supply which remains active whenever AC power is supplied to the computer system.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.