Method and apparatus for supporting diverse memory access schemes

• US 8,423,730 B2
• Filed: 07/27/2010
• Issued: 04/16/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Qualcomm Innovation Center Incorporated (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Qualcomm Innovation Center Incorporated (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Inventors: Miranda, Maria I.
• Primary Examiner(s): Rojas, Midys
• Application Number:
  US12/844,226
• Publication Number:
  US 20120030691A1
• Time in Patent Office: 994 Days
• Field of Search: 711/103, 711/154, 711/156, 711/159, 711/206, 711/E12.001, 711/E12.008
• US Class Current: 711/159
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7202 Allocation control and policies
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/10 Programming or data input circuits
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/76 using address translation or modifications
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/82 for EEPROMs
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 29/88 with partially good memories

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for supporting diverse memory access schemes are disclosed. In one embodiment, a mobile computing device includes program code that accesses memory according to a first bad block management scheme and program code that accesses memory according to a second bad block management scheme, which is different than the first bad block memory scheme. In addition, a memory component includes data that is partitioned according to both the first bad block management scheme and the second bad block management scheme so as to enable both the code that accesses memory according to a first bad block management scheme and the code that accesses memory according to a second bad block management scheme to utilize the memory component.

Claims

1. A mobile computing device, comprising:

program code that accesses memory according to a first bad block management scheme;

program code that accesses memory according to a second bad block management scheme, the second bad block management scheme being different than the first bad block management scheme wherein the program code that accesses memory according to the first bad block management scheme includes bootloader code and the program code that accesses memory according to the second bad block management scheme includes operating system code; and

a memory component including data partitioned according to both the first bad block management scheme and the second bad block management scheme so as to enable both the code that accesses memory according to the first bad block management scheme and the code that accesses memory according to the second bad block management scheme to utilize the memory component.

2. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the bootloader code is adapted, so that when it is executed, to utilize an API call of an abstraction layer that is generally available to other code so as to initiate an execution of the operating system code.

3. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the memory component is a single contiguous memory component including a first partition table with pointers to data stored according to the first bad block management scheme and a second partition table with pointers to data that is stored according to the second bad block management scheme.

4. The mobile computing device of claim 3, wherein the first bad block management scheme is a skip-block management scheme and the first partition table includes pointers to data stored according to the skip-block management scheme, and the second bad block management scheme is a replace-block management scheme and the second partition table includes pointers to data stored according to the replace-block management scheme.

5. A method for programming nonvolatile memory of a mobile computing device, the method comprising:

receiving the nonvolatile memory;

writing program code, which includes bootloader code, into a first portion of the nonvolatile memory of the device according to a first bad block management scheme; and

writing program code, which includes operating system code, into another portion of the nonvolatile memory of the device according to a second bad block management scheme.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the program code that is written to the first portion of the nonvolatile memory includes program code that is adapted to access the nonvolatile memory using only the first bad block management scheme and the program code that is written to the second portion of the nonvolatile memory includes program code that is adapted to access the nonvolatile memory using only the second bad block management scheme.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the program code that is adapted to access the nonvolatile memory using only the first bad block management scheme is adapted to directly access the memory via a low level driver for the memory.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the program code that is written to the second portion of the memory includes program code to create a block management layer when executed, and the block management layer accesses the second portion of the memory using the second bad block management scheme and provides an abstraction for clients to access the memory via the block management layer.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the program code that is written to the first portion of the nonvolatile memory includes program code that is adapted to directly access the nonvolatile memory using the first bad block management scheme and access the second portion of the memory, via the block management layer, using the second bad block management scheme.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first bad block management scheme is a skip-block management scheme and the second bad block management scheme is a replace-block management scheme.

11. A mobile computing apparatus, the apparatus comprising:

means for storing program code that includes bootloader code in a skip-block management format;

means for storing program code that includes operating system code in a replace block management format;

means for executing the program code stored in the skip-block management format and means for executing the program code stored in the replace-block management format; and

means for accessing the bootloader code in the skip-block management format and means for accessing the operating system code in the replace-block management format.

12. The mobile computing device of claim 11, wherein the bootloader code directly accesses the means for storing via a low level driver for the memory.

13. The mobile computing device of claim 11, wherein the means for accessing the program code includes code that is adapted, when executed, to create a block management layer that provides an abstraction of the means for storing code that includes operating system code to enable disparate clients that are executed by the means for executing to access the means for storing code that includes operating system code.

14. The mobile computing device of claim 13, wherein at least a portion of the bootloader code is adapted to directly access the code in the skip-block management format and access, via the block management layer, the code in the replace-block management format.

15. The mobile computing device of claim 11, wherein the means for storing program code that includes bootloader code includes a first partition table for locating the program code stored according to the skip-block management format and the means for storing program code that includes operating system code includes a second partition table for locating the program code stored according to the replace-block management format.

16. A non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium, encoded with processor readable instructions to perform a method for accessing nonvolatile memory of a mobile computing device, the method comprising:

accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device using a first bad block management scheme to execute bootloader code stored in the nonvolatile memory according to the first bad block management scheme; and

accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device using a second bad block management scheme to execute operating system code stored in the nonvolatile memory according to the second bad block management scheme.

17. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device using a first bad block management scheme includes directly accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device.

18. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein directly accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device includes directly accessing the nonvolatile memory during a boot load sequence.

19. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein accessing the nonvolatile memory of the mobile computing device using a second bad block management scheme includes accessing the nonvolatile memory via a block management layer.

20. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein accessing the nonvolatile memory via a block management layer includes accessing the nonvolatile memory via the block management layer using code that executes after being accessed from the nonvolatile memory using the first bad block management scheme.

21. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the code that executes after being accessed from the nonvolatile memory is the bootloader code that initiates, via the block management layer, execution of operating system code that uses the second bad block management scheme.

22. The non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium of claim 21, wherein the bootloader code directly accesses a low level driver of the memory, using the first bad block management scheme to initiate execution of modem software.