System and method for sharing a non-volatile memory element as a boot device

A circuit that controls propagation of data to at least one peripheral device placed within a vehicle, the circuit comprising:

• a memory bus;
• a non-volatile memory element coupled to the memory bus, said non-volatile memory element to contain operational code used during a boot sequence;
• a plurality of computing systems each including a processor and a local memory element, each of the plurality of computing systems to perform the boot sequence in response to a boot condition;
• and
• a memory access coordination circuit coupled to the memory bus and to the plurality of computing systems, said memory access coordination circuit to control a direct memory access transfer of the operational code from the non-volatile memory element to the local memory element associated with a selected processor of one of the computer systems.

A method for performing a boot sequence by obtaining operational code from a memory element of which its contents are shared by a plurality of processors, the method comprising the steps of:

• determining that a boot condition exists in at least one processor of the plurality of processors;
• preparing for a direct memory access transfer from the memory element to a memory local to the at least one processor;
• requesting ownership of the memory bus for transferring operational code into the memory local to the at least one processor;
• and
• performing the direct memory access transfer of operational code from the memory element into the memory local to the at least one processor.