VEHICULAR MEMORY MANAGEMENT APPARATUS

• US 20090132117A1
• Filed: 11/07/2008
• Published: 05/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation
• Inventors: Kondoh, Masayoshi, Shimizu, Kokichi, Ban, Yoshinori
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,403 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1441 Resetting or repowering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/167 Error detection by comparing the memory output

Abstract

When a non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM has a trouble code storage area and a status information area, status information is stored in the status information area after completion of storage of a trouble code in the trouble code storage area. Even when storage of the trouble code in a second storage area is interrupted due to a power fault with a result of three area discrepancy, the storage of the trouble code in the storage area is determined as not complete based on the status information, thereby leading to an appropriate data recovery of the trouble code in the trouble code storage area for an improvement of storage reliability of a vehicular memory management apparatus.

Claims

1. A vehicular memory management apparatus for use in a vehicle, wherein a fault code represents a fault in the vehicle, the apparatus comprising:

a memory management unit for evenly storing a fault code in respectively different three code storage areas in a non-volatile memory disposed in the vehicle; and

a status management unit for storing status information in a status storage area in the non-volatile memory, wherein

the status information represents a storage complete status of the fault code in the respectively different three code storage areas, and

the status information is stored in the status storage area after completion of storage of the fault code.

2. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 1 further comprising an abnormality detection unit for detecting storage abnormality on a basis of examination of majority of data in the respectively different three code storage areas, wherein

the abnormality detection unit includes an adoption determination unit that determines adoption of the data in the respectively different three storage areas,

the data in the respectively different three storage areas is used for the examination of majority of data when the adoption determination unit determines adoption of the data, and

the examination of majority of data yields a result that is used for determining the storage abnormality.

3. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 2, wherein

the non-volatile memory has three status storage areas disposed therein,

the status management unit stores the status information evenly in the three status storage areas, and

the adoption determination unit determines adoption of the data in the respectively different three code storage area after performing the examination of majority of data in the three status storage areas for yielding an examination result.

4. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 3 further comprising:

an initialization determination unit for determining whether the data in the non-volatile memory is initialized or not; and

an initialization control unit for performing initialization of the data, wherein,

when the initialization of the data in the non-volatile memory is determined by the initialization determination unit, the initialization of the data in the respectively different three code storage areas is performed after the initialization of the data in the three status storage areas by the initialization control unit.

5. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

an initialization determination unit for determining whether the data in the non-volatile memory is initialized or not; and

an initialization control unit for performing initialization of the data, wherein,

when the initialization of the data in the non-volatile memory is determined by the initialization determination unit, the initialization of the data in the respectively different three code storage areas is orderly performed after the initialization of the data in the status storage area by the initialization control unit.

6. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 2, wherein

the abnormality determination unit includes a restore unit that performs initialization of the data, and

the data in the respectively different three code storage areas is initialized by the restore unit when the adoption determination unit does not determine the adoption of the data in the respectively different three code storage areas.

7. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 1, wherein

the status management unit stores data including the fault code as the status information in the status storage area.

8. A vehicular memory management apparatus for use in a vehicle, wherein a fault code represents a fault in the vehicle, the apparatus comprising:

a memory management unit for evenly storing a fault code in respectively different two code storage areas in a non-volatile memory disposed in the vehicle; and

a status management unit for storing status information in a status storage area in the non-volatile memory, wherein

status information represents a storage complete status of the fault code in the respectively different two code storage areas, and

the status information is stored in the status storage area after completion of storage of the fault code.

9. The vehicular memory management apparatus of claim 8 further comprising an abnormality detection unit for detecting storage abnormality on a basis of matching of data in each of the respectively different two code storage areas, wherein

the abnormality detection unit determines the storage abnormality based on a determination result from a data matching examination of the data in each of the two code storage areas subsequent to a determination of adoption of the data in each of the two code storage areas according to the data in the status storage area.