System and method for on-board diagnostics of memory modules
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Accused Products
Abstract
A memory hub includes an on-board diagnostic engine through which diagnostic testing and evaluation of the memory system can be performed. The memory hub includes a link interface for receiving memory requests for access to memory devices of the memory system and a memory device interface coupled to the memory devices for coupling memory requests to the memory devices. A memory hub diagnostic engine is coupled through a switch to the link interface and the memory device interface to perform diagnostic testing of the memory system. The diagnostic engine includes a maintenance port that provides access to results of the diagnostic testing and through which diagnostic testing commands can be received.
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Citations
55 Claims
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1-32. -32. (canceled)
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33. A memory test system for testing a system memory of a computer, comprising:
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a host computer system operable to provide diagnostic testing commands; and
a system memory under test having a plurality of memory modules, each of the memory modules having a plurality of memory devices and a memory hub coupled to the memory devices, the memory hub comprising;
a memory device interface coupled to the memory devices of the respective memory module, the memory device interface operable to provide signals to the memory devices and further operable to receive signals from the memory devices; and
a diagnostic test engine coupled to the memory device interface and having a host computer system interface coupled to the host computer system and operable to receive the diagnostic testing commands, the diagnostic test engine operable to monitor memory system operation while at least one of the memory devices is operating. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43)
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44. A memory test system for testing a system memory of a computer, comprising:
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a host computer system operable to provide diagnostic testing commands and receive diagnostic testing results; and
a system memory under test having a plurality of memory modules coupled to a link on which signals are transmitted, each of the memory modules having located thereon a plurality of memory devices and a memory hub coupled to the memory devices, the memory hub comprising;
a plurality of link interfaces coupled to the link, the link interfaces operable to transmit and receive signals on the link; and
a diagnostic test engine coupled to the link interface and having a host computer system interface coupled to the host computer system and operable to receive the diagnostic testing commands and provide diagnostic testing results, the diagnostic test engine operable to monitor memory system operation, the diagnostic test engine further operable to provide results from monitoring the memory system operation to the host computer system as diagnostic testing results. - View Dependent Claims (45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50)
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51. A method for evaluating performance of a memory hub based memory module having a plurality of memory devices coupled to the memory hub, the method comprising:
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providing diagnostic testing commands to a diagnostic engine embedded in the memory hub of the memory module to perform diagnostic testing;
controlling a link interface circuit to monitor signals transmitted or received on a link to which the memory hub of the memory module is coupled;
controlling a memory device interface circuit to monitor signals during transmission to or reception from the memory devices;
storing the results of monitoring by the memory device interface circuit and the results of monitoring by the link interface circuits in a memory;
providing diagnostic testing commands to the diagnostic engine embedded in the memory hub to retrieve the stored results and provide the results over a maintenance port of the diagnostic engine. - View Dependent Claims (52, 53, 54, 55)
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Specification