BUFFER MANAGER AND METHODS FOR MANAGING MEMORY

• US 20110296063A1
• Filed: 03/01/2011
• Published: 12/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Marvell World Trade Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Bishara, Nafea, Pais, Alon
• Granted Patent: US 8,327,047 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/56
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2205/106 Details of pointers, i.e. structure of the address generators
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 5/12 Means for monitoring the fill level; Means for resolving contention, i.e. conflicts between simultaneous enqueue and dequeue operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/621 Individual queue per connection or flow, e.g. per VC

Abstract

Some of the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method comprising managing a plurality of buffer addresses in a system-on-chip (SOC); and if a number of available buffer addresses in the SOC falls below a low threshold value, obtaining one or more buffer addresses from a memory, which is external to the SOC, to the SOC. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

managing a plurality of buffer addresses in a system-on-chip (SOC); and

if a number of available buffer addresses in the SOC falls below a low threshold value, obtaining one or more buffer addresses from a memory, which is external to the SOC, to the SOC.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the number of available buffer addresses in the SOC exceeds a high threshold value, allocating another one or more buffer addresses from the SOC to the memory.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein said managing the plurality of buffer addresses in the SOC comprises managing the plurality of buffer addresses in an internal buffer pointer pool in the SOC;

and

wherein said obtaining the one or more buffer addresses from the memory further comprises obtaining the one or more buffer addresses from an external buffer pointer pool in the memory.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said managing the plurality of buffer addresses in the SOC further comprise:

managing a plurality of buffer pointers in the SOC, wherein a buffer pointer of the plurality of buffer pointers includes a corresponding buffer address of the plurality of buffer addresses.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said obtaining the one or more buffer addresses from the memory to the SOC further comprises:

assigning a first buffer address from the SOC to a client component; and

in response to said assigning, if the number of available buffer addresses in the SOC falls below the low threshold value, obtaining the one or more buffer addresses from the memory to the SOC.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said assigning the first buffer address further comprises:

receiving an allocation request for a buffer location from the client component; and

in response to receiving the allocation request, assigning the first buffer address to the client component by assigning a first buffer pointer to the client component, wherein the first buffer pointer includes the first buffer address.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

in response to said assigning the first buffer address to the client component, marking the first buffer address as an unavailable buffer address in the SOC.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

buffering, by the client component, a data packet received by the client component to a buffer location corresponding to the first buffer address, based at least in part on said assigning the first buffer address to the client component.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein the internal buffer pointer pool is a first internal buffer pointer pool, the method further comprises:

receiving an allocation request for a buffer location from a client component to buffer a data packet received by the client component;

selecting, in response to the allocation request, one of the first internal buffer pointer pool and a second internal buffer pointer pool for allocating a buffer address to the client component, based at least in part on (i) a size of the data packet, (ii) a size of a buffer location associated with the first internal buffer pointer pool, and (iii) a size of a buffer location associated with the second internal buffer pointer pool; and

assigning a buffer address, associated with the selected internal buffer pointer pool, to the client component by assigning a corresponding buffer pointer to the client component.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein the internal buffer pointer pool is a first internal buffer pointer pool, the method further comprising:

associating the first internal buffer pointer pool with a first client component such that buffer addresses from the first internal buffer pointer pool are assigned to the first client component; and

associating a second internal buffer pointer pool with a second client component such that buffer addresses from the second internal buffer pointer pool are assigned to the second client component.

11. The method of claim 2, wherein said allocating the another one or more buffer addresses further comprises:

receiving a release request from a client component, requesting to release a first buffer location associated with a first buffer address;

releasing the first buffer location in response to the release request;

marking the first buffer address as an available buffer address in the SOC, in response to releasing the first buffer location; and

in response to said marking, if the number of available buffer addresses in the internal buffer pointer pool exceeds the high threshold level, allocating the another one or more buffer addresses from the SOC to the memory.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said one or more buffer addresses comprises a first plurality of buffer addresses, wherein said obtaining the first plurality of buffer addresses from the memory to the SOC further comprises:

transmitting the first plurality of buffer addresses from the memory to the SOC as a single transaction between the memory and the SOC.

13. A system-on-chip (SOC) comprising:

a client component; and

a buffer management unit (BMU) comprising;

an internal buffer pointer pool (IBPP); and

a controller configured to;

monitor a number of unassigned buffer pointers in the IBPP, and

if the number of unassigned buffer pointers in the IBPP falls below a threshold value, allocate one or more buffer pointers from an external buffer pointer pool (EBPP) to the IBPP.

14. The SOC of claim 13, wherein the controller is further configured to:

if the number of unassigned buffer pointers in the internal buffer pointer pool exceeds a high threshold value, allocate another one or more buffer pointers from the IBPP to the EBPP.

15. The SOC of claim 13, wherein the buffer pointers in the IBPP points to corresponding buffer locations of a memory that is external to the SOC.

16. The SOC of claim 13, wherein the client component is a processing core that is separate from the BMU.

17. The SOC of claim 13, wherein the client component is a network interface.

18. The SOC of claim 13, wherein the EBPP is stored in a memory that is external to the SOC.

19. A method comprising:

maintaining a plurality of buffer pointer pools (BPPs), wherein each BPP is logically sectioned in an internal buffer pointer pool (IBPP) and an external buffer pointer pool (EBPP); and

for each BPP, dynamically allocating a plurality of buffer pointers to the corresponding IBPP and dynamically allocating another plurality of buffer pointers to the corresponding EBPP.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of BPPs comprises a first BPP and a second BPP, and wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a buffer allocation request from a first component;

in response to receiving the buffer allocation request, selecting one of the first BPP and the second BPP; and

assigning to the first component a buffer pointer from the IBPP associated with the selected BPP.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

for each BPP, dynamically re-allocating buffer pointers between the corresponding IBPP and the corresponding EBPP such that a threshold number of unassigned buffer pointers is maintained in the IBPP.