METHOD AND SYSTEM OF UPDATING SHARED MEMORY

• US 20110307668A1
• Filed: 06/09/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Lear Corporation
• Original Assignee: Lear Corporation
• Inventors: Fàbregas, Antoni Ferré, Alari, David Gamez, Lincer, Stanislav, Bañares, Jose Gabriel Fernández
• Granted Patent: US 8,539,472 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/147
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment

Abstract

A method and system is disclosed for updating a shared memory or other memory location where multiple entities rely on code stored to the same memory to support one or more operation functions. The shared memory may be updated such that the code intended to the replace the currently stored code may be relied upon prior to replacement of the code currently written to the shared memory.

Claims

1. For use with a battery monitoring system (BMS) having an application operable to measure current flow to a vehicle battery and a launcher operable to enable drivers utilized by the application, both of the launcher and the application implementing communication functions according to communication code written to a shared memory block, a method of updating the currently written communication code with new communication code, the method comprising:

writing the new communication code to an application memory block having application code used to operate the application, the application being inoperable while the new communication code is written to the application memory block;

executing communications based on the communication code previously written to the shared memory block while the new communication code is being written to the application memory block;

copying the new communication code from the application memory block to the shared memory block, the communications supported by the code written to the shared memory block being inoperable while the new communication code is being written to the shared memory block;

executing communications based on the new communication code written to the application memory block while the new communication code is being copied to the shared memory block, and thereafter, executing additional communications based on the new communication code written to the shared memory block; and

writing application code to the application memory block after completing the copying of the new communication code to the shared memory block, the application operational after the application code is completely written to the application memory block.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising writing over the new communication code when writing the application code to the application memory block.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving the new communication code to be written to the application memory block through communications executed based on the communication code currently written to the first memory.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising validating the new communication code written to the application memory block with a checksum operation prior to copying the new communication code to the shared memory block.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising verifying a version number assigned to the new communication code is an authorized update to a version number assigned to the currently written communication code prior to copying the new communication code to the shared memory block.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising periodically issuing a command indicative of a pending status while the new communication code is being copied from the application memory block to the shared memory block.

7. A controller comprising;

a central processing unit (CPU) operable to execute code to enable operations of the controller according to instructions read from;

(i) a launcher memory block having code stored to facilitate operation of a launcher;

(ii) an application memory block having code stored to facilitate operation of an application; and

(iii) a shared memory block having communication code shared by each of the launcher and the application.

8. The controller of claim 7 wherein the shared memory block stores code required by each of the launcher and the application to enable communications of the type where data is exchanged over a vehicle network with at least one of a master and a vehicle controller connected to the vehicle network.

9. The controller of claim 8 wherein the launcher is operable to execute a bootloader that enables updating of the shared memory block without disabling communications.

10. The controller of claim 9 wherein the bootloader is operable to facilitate updating a first set of code stored to the shared portion with a second set of code, and to write the second set of code to a temporal portion of the application memory block prior to being copied to the shared memory block.

11. The controller of claim 10 wherein the bootloader is further operable to execute communications according to the second set of code stored at the application memory block while the second set of code is being copied from the application memory block to the shared portion of the launcher memory block.

12. The controller of claim 11 wherein at least a portion of the communications executed while the second set of code is being copied to the shared portion includes periodically transmitting a message to a master that is indicative of a pending status.

13. The controller of claim 10 wherein the application becomes inoperable once the second set of code starts to be written to the application memory block.

14. The controller of claim 10 wherein the bootloader is further operable to write code associated with the application over the second set of code stored to the application memory block after copying of the second set of code to the shared portion of the launcher memory block is completed.

15. The controller of claim 10 wherein the bootloader is further operable to prevent of the second set of code from being copied to the shared memory in the event a checksum of the second set of code fails to match a checksum value.

16. The controller of claim 7 wherein the shared memory block is stored to a fixed location within the launcher memory block.

17. A method of updating a shared memory block used to store shared code at a fixed memory location to support communications of a first program and a second program, the method comprising:

writing new shared code to a temporal memory block assigned to one of the first and second programs, one of the first and the second programs becoming inoperable while the new shared code is stored at temporal memory block;

copying the new shared code from the temporal memory block to the shared memory block; and

executing shared functions according to the new shared code stored at the temporal memory block while the new shared code is being copied to the shared memory block.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising executing at least a portion of the shared functions while the new shared code is being copied to the shared memory block includes periodically transmitting a message indicative of a pending status to a client.

19. The method of claim 17 further comprising preventing of the new shared code from being copied to the shared memory block in the event a checksum of the new shared code stored at the temporal block fails to match a checksum value.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising writing code associated with the one of the programs that becomes inoperable over the new shared code stored at the temporal block after copying of the new shared code to the shared memory is completed, the one of the program becoming operable thereafter.