System and method for managing compression and decompression and decompression of system memory in a computer system

• US 7,047,382 B2
• Filed: 07/26/2001
• Issued: 05/16/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2000
• Status: Expired

• Current Assignee: Mossman Holdings LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Quickshift, Inc.
• Inventors: Geiger, Peter, Dye, Thomas A., Alvarez, Manuel J. II
• Primary Examiner(s): Verbrugge, Kevin
• Application Number:
  US09/915,751
• Publication Number:
  US 20020073298A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,755 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 711/165
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/023 Free address space management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/08 in hierarchically structured memory systems, e.g. virtual memory systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/10 Address translation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/401 Compressed data

Abstract

A method and system for allowing a processor or I/O master to address more system memory than physically exists are described. A Compressed Memory Management Unit (CMMU) may keep least recently used pages compressed, and most recently and/or frequently used pages uncompressed in physical memory. The CMMU translates system addresses into physical addresses, and may manage the compression and/or decompression of data at the physical addresses as required. The CMMU may provide data to be compressed or decompressed to a compression/decompression engine. In some embodiments, the data to be compressed or decompressed may be provided to a plurality of compression/decompression engines that may be configured to operate in parallel. The CMMU may pass the resulting physical address to the system memory controller to access the physical memory. A CMMU may be integrated in a processor, a system memory controller or elsewhere within the system.

Claims

1. A method for compressing memory in a system comprising a plurality of compression engines and a physical memory, wherein the physical memory comprises system memory, the method comprising:

locating a page translation entry in a page translation table, wherein the page translation entry references an uncompressed page in the physical memory;

providing the referenced uncompressed page to the plurality of compression engines, wherein each of the plurality of compression engines implements a different compression algorithm;

the plurality of compression engines each compressing the uncompressed page using the compression algorithm implemented by the particular compression engine to produce a plurality of compressed pages each compressed by a different compression algorithm;

selecting the compressed page with the highest compression ratio of the plurality of compressed pages; and

writing the selected compressed page to the physical memory.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising marking the page translation entry associated with the selected compressed page to indicate the particular compression algorithm used in said compressing the page.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the compressed page needs to be decompressed;

examining the page translation entry to determine the particular compression algorithm used to compress the page;

selecting a decompression engine from a plurality of decompression engines, wherein the selected decompression engine implements a decompression algorithm for decompressing data compressed using the particular compression algorithm;

providing the page to the selected decompression engine; and

the selected decompression engine decompressing the page using the decompression algorithm to produce the decompressed page.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the compression of pages of the memory in the system is operable to increase the effective size of the system memory by keeping least recently used data as compressed data in the physical memory and most recently and frequently used data as uncompressed data in the physical memory.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the system further comprises an operating system, wherein the operating system is not aware of the increased effective size of the system memory.