MEMORY SYSTEM AND METHOD OF MANAGING THE SAME

• US 20100312955A1
• Filed: 04/08/2010
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Kim, Min-chan, HWANG, Joo-young
• Application Number:
  US12/756,622
• Publication Number:
  US 20100312955A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/08 in hierarchically structured memory systems, e.g. virtual memory systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/1009 using page tables, e.g. page table structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/121 using replacement algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/205 Hybrid memory, e.g. using both volatile and non-volatile memory
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A memory system to manage a memory using a virtual memory is provided. The memory system may use an asymmetric memory as a swap storage of a dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The asymmetric memory may access on a byte basis, allowing a process to directly access a page swapped out to the asymmetric memory through direct mapping.

Claims

1. A memory system, comprising:

an asymmetric memory;

a dynamic random access memory (DRAM); and

a control unit configured to use the asymmetric memory as swap storage of the DRAM and to move a page selected to be swapped out by the DRAM to the asymmetric memory.

2. The memory system of claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to map an address of a page which is directly swapped out to the asymmetric memory to a page table of the swapped-out page such that a process is capable of directly accessing the swapped-out page.

3. The memory system of claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to assign a lower priority to pages on which write operations are frequently performed in response to selecting the pages to be swapped out.

4. The memory system of claim 3, wherein the control unit is further configured to manage pages with an active list and an inactive list, the active list comprising pages which have been recently referred to, the inactive list comprising pages which have not been recently referred to and being divided into an inactive write list and an inactive read list according to an occurrence of write operations.

5. The memory system of claim 4, wherein the control unit is further configured to:

scan the inactive write list and the inactive read list; and

promote pages which have been recently referred to twice or more to the active list.

6. The memory system of claim 4, wherein the control unit is further configured to:

reduce the active list by moving pages which have not been recently referred to from the active list to either the inactive write list or the inactive read list according to an occurrence of write operations in each page;

reduce the inactive write list by moving pages to which a write operation has not been recently performed to the inactive read list; and

select pages to be swapped out from the inactive read list after reducing the inactive write list.

7. The memory system of claim 6, wherein, in response to reducing the inactive write list, the control unit is further configured to scan a page and locates the scanned page in a tail of the inactive read list in response to it being determined that a dirty bit and a reference bit have not been set corresponding to the scanned page with reference to a page table entry of the scanned page.

8. The memory system of claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to:

manage the swapped-out pages with a least recently written (LRW) list arranged in the order of recently written pages; and

select most recently written pages to be swapped in.

9. The memory system of claim 8, wherein the control unit is further configured to:

assign a read-only permission corresponding to the swapped-out pages;

change a read-only permission corresponding to the swapped-out page to a read/write permission in order to permit a write operation on the page in response to a write request corresponding to the swapped-out page being received; and

move the page to which the write operation has been performed to a head of the LRW list.

10. The memory system of claim 8, wherein the control unit, in response to scanning the LRW list, is further configured to:

mark pages to be migrated, the pages having a read/write permission assigned;

change a status of the marked pages to read-only;

generate a page fault in the marked page where write access to the marked page occurs; and

move the page where the page fault has occurred to the DRAM.

11. The memory system of claim 1, wherein the control unit is further configured to move the swapped-out pages to the DRAM in response to a size of a free page in the DRAM exceeding a threshold value.

12. A method of managing a memory system comprising an asymmetric memory and a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), the method comprising:

moving pages selected to be swapped out by the DRAM to the asymmetric memory by using the asymmetric memory as a swap storage of the DRAM.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising mapping an address of a page which is directly swapped out to the asymmetric memory to a page table of the swapped-out page such that a process can directly access the swapped-out page.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising assigning a lower priority to frequently written pages in response to the pages being selected to be swapped out.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

in order to select the pages to be swapped out, managing pages with an active list and an inactive list, the active list comprising pages which have been recently referred to and the inactive list comprising pages which have not been recently referred to,

wherein the inactive list is divided into an inactive write list and an inactive read list according to an occurrence of write operations.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising scanning the inactive write list and the inactive read list and promoting pages which have been recently referred to twice or more to the active list.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the managing of the pages comprises:

reducing the active list by moving pages which have not been recently referred to from the active list to either the inactive write list or the inactive read list according to an occurrence of write operations to each page;

reducing the inactive write list by moving pages to which a write operation has not been recently performed to the inactive read list; and

selecting pages to be swapped out from the inactive read list.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

managing the swapped-out pages with a least recently written (LRW) list arranged in the order of recently written pages; and

selecting most recently written pages been performed to be swapped in.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the managing of the swapped-out pages comprises:

assigning read-only permission corresponding to the swapped-out pages;

changing the read-only permission corresponding to the swapped-out page to a read/write permission in order to permit a write operation to be performed on the page in response to a write request corresponding to the swapped-out page being received; and

moving the page to which the write operation has been performed to a head of the LRW list.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

in response to scanning the LRW list;

marking the pages to be migrated, the pages for which a read/write permission is assigned; and

changing the status of the pages to read-only;

generating a page fault in the marked page in response to a write access occurring to the marked page; and

moving the page where the page fault has occurred to the DRAM.