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US 7,398,383 B2Granted
Method and system for using internal FIFO RAM to improve system boot times
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsDavid I. Poisner, William A. Stevens
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of methods and systems for improving boot-up time in computer systems utilize RAM in devices separate from the main memory, normally dedicated to another function, to provide a stack and temporary storage during BIOS execution, enabling BIOS to call subroutines and execute in a multi-threading fashion, speeding system boot-up.
Claims17
A computer comprising:
- a CPU;
- a peripheral device;
- and
- a RAM located in the peripheral device and including first and second portions, the first portion being at least temporarily accessible to the CPU for BIOS processing, and the second portion being reserved for an operation of the peripheral device, wherein the first and second portions are usable in parallel by the CPU and the peripheral device respectively.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- allocating a first portion of a RAM separate from main memory for use by the CPU as a stack during BIOS processing;
- reserving a second portion of the RAM for an operation of a peripheral device;
- and
- performing the BIOS processing and an operation of the peripheral device in parallel, using the first and second portions respectively.
1 more element
A system comprising:
- a CPU;
- and
- a RAM separate from main memory and accessible to the CPU for use as a stack during BIOS processing;
- wherein the RAM is divided into a first portion and second portion, and only said first portion is accessible to the CPU, and wherein the first and second portions are usable in parallel by the CPU and peripheral device respectively.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- booting up a computer system;
- and
- performing both BIOS processing and an operation of a peripheral device of the computer system in parallel, using a RAM located in the peripheral device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.